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A NEW 

PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 



A NEW 



PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER, 



SHOWING THE 



IDENTITY OF ALL THE IMPONDERABLES 



INFLUENCE WHICH ELECTRICITY EXERTS OVER MATTER 

IN PRODUCING ALL CHEMICAL CHANGES, 

ALL MOTION AND REST. 

BY 

GEORGE BREWSTER. 



IJem and ^cuised jf f^tfion. 



WITH IMPORTANT ADDITIONS, CORRECTIONS, AND 

AN EXTENSIVE APPENDIX UPON ELECTRICITY 

AS A CURATIVE AGENT, 



A. H. STEVP:NS, M.D., E.D., 

OF PHILAnELPHIA. 

■ izup^- 

PIIITADETPIIIA: 

TuRLiSHED BY CLAXTON, REMSKN & HAFFELFINGER, 

FOR THE AUTHOR, 

1630 GRKKN ST. 
1874. 



-\ 



I 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

A. H. STEVENS, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 






^ 



J. FAGAN & SON, 
STEREOTYPEES, PHILAD'A. ^ 

-lyx ^- 



,vy.., 



INTRODUCTION. 



THIS very interesting and highly instructive work, 
from the late Professor George Brewster, was written 
some thirty-one years ago. Although very much needed, 
for unavoidable reasons it has never been brought to view 
for the benefit of the world. 

It was issued in book form, unbound, in 1843, ^-t which 
¥^: time the author suddenly died. For this reason, I suppose, 
it was never finished and circulated. In 1859 it was my 
good fortune to obtain a single copy of the work. By a 
careful perijsal I found greaf as well as new and important 
truths on the sublime science in which I was f/ien, and am 
still, deeply interested, namely. Electricity. 

After much research, I found where it was printed some 
sixteen years before; but not having been called for by the 
author, all but a few copies had been used up for packing, 
or sold for waste paper. I obtained the price per copy, 
and immediately sent an order for the balance. 

Occasionally I showed the work to my students under 
electrical instruction, who were inquiring for some text- 
book as reference. They were enthusiastic over its con- 
tents, and were ever anxious to possess themselves of a c op)-. 

It was not long before I conchukxl, at some future dav, 
to republish the work — there bcini;- such a desire to ohiain 



X INTRODUCTION. 

it by all who were privileged to see and read it. After 
waiting a reasonable time for it to appear by other hands, 
and realizing its intrinsic value to the world, I concluded 
to undertake it myself, together with a supplement em- 
bracing a synopsis of the processes of my new mode of 
electrical diagnosis and treatment of disease, which I have 
been urged to do by students and others, and not a few 
medical practitioners. 

After my determination to republish the work, I refused 
to sell it to any one ; but finally consented to part with a 
few copies to my students, who had read and re-read the 
copy at my office until they became enamored with its 
great value, so that they would not be denied, and cheer- 
fully offered five dollars per copy. Some three or four 
years ago, or even more, perhaps, I commenced making 
preparations for republishing the work, with my appendix, 
and stopped selling any more copies — even refusing ten 
dollars per copy. 

The original print was in unreadable type, on very poor 
paper, and with many corrections needed even in the proof. 

The book, in the main, contained a rich mine of scien- 
tific wealth ; but it needed many alterations before it could 
be circulated as a truly brilliant star in the canopy of 
science. 

With these few introductory remarks, I submit it to 
the careful and candid perusal of all lovers of real science, 
especially as demonstrated by this wonderful and ever- 
present agent, Electricity. 

A. H. STEVENS. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

PAGB 

Introductory to a Series of Lectures on the Impon- 
derable Agents 13 

LECTURE II. 
Common Electricity 34 

LECTURE III. 
Common Electricity — Continued 56 

LECTURE IV. 
Galvanism . . . , 78 

LECTURE V. 
Galvanism — Continued 100 

LECTURE VI. 

Galvanism, and the Changes in Organic and Inorganic 

Matter 122 

LECTURE VII. 
Oxygen and Hydrogen 142 

LECTURE VIII. 

Animal Electricity and Electric Pathology . . .159 

xi 



Xll CONTENTS. 

LECTURE IX. 

PAGE 

Electro-Magnetism . . . . . . . .180 

LECTURE X. 
Light 194 

LECTURE XL 
Light and Heat . . . 209 

LECTURE XIL 
Heat — Magnetic Attraction — The Aurora . . . 222 

LECTURE XIIL 

Gravitation — Cohesion — Motion of Planets . . , 226' 



PART II. 

ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 
Introductory 263 

CHAPTER I. 
Common Electricity 265 

CHAPTER 11. 
Instruction . . . 322 



A NEW 

PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER 



LECTURE I. 



INTRODUCTORY TO A SERIES OF LECTURES ON 
THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 

THE present age is peculiarly and emphatically- 
distinguished. — An important prophecy is in 
the very process of fulfilment. Many are "running to 
and fro," and knowledge is more rapidly increasing 
than at any former period of the world. Acceleration 
marks the progress of everything. Instead of trav- 
elling, as formerly, at the snail-like pace of three or 
five miles per hour, we now dart away upon the wings 
of steam, at a rate varying from fifteen to forty miles 
per hour. And the progress of man in science keeps 
pace with his progress in locomotion. This is quite 
as much owing to the fact that " many run to antl 
fro," as to any other fact whatever. Individual ac- 
quisition in science is not so much hoarded as for- 
merly. It is rather appropriated as common stock — 
rather scattered broadcast over the land. 

2 13 



14 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

There is another fact, which greatly accelerates the 
increase of knowledge. Scholars, at the present day, 
while following the direction of their inclination, and 
obeying the promptings of genius, confine their atten- 
tion, more than formerly, to the thorough investiga- 
tion of isolated branches of science, after having 
glanced, as in their collegiate course, at the whole 
routine oi general knowledge. One concentrates every 
energy of his intellect to the minute examination of 
one subject, another to another, another to another, 
and so on. Each investigates that branch for which 
his mental habits and bias most peculiarly fit him. By 
such concentration, truths and facts in science are dis- 
covered, which would never have been discovered by 
roving from branch to branch, and aiming to become 
what is called a universal genius. Thus has light been 
poured with intense radiance upon what was dark, 
and errors in both theory and practice have been cor- 
rected. 

But even such an individual concentration of mind 
would not greatly accelerate the increase of knowl- 
edge were not the results of such concentration com- 
municated. This is done through the medium of oral 
instruction as well as printed, for this is emphatically 
the age of lectures. Thus the labor of acquiring and 
diffusing knowledge is divided among a large number, 
and, by such a division, a vast multitude of important 
scientific facts are brought forth to light, which had 
lain dormant and undiscovered for ages, and might 
still have remained dormant and undiscovered for 
ages more without the intervention of such agency. 

The prevailing disposition of society is, also, auspi- 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 1 5 

cious. There is an insatiable thirst for knowledge and 
novelty, and any one who can administer a palatable 
beverage to quench that thirst is favorably received, 
and enjoys generally such a share of patronage as to 
reward and stimulate his exertions. 

Confident that this mental concentration to the 
investigation of isolated branches most effectually 
promotes the increase of knowledge, and that such an 
auspicious disposition prevails through intelligent 
society, I am induced to offer to the public a course 
of lectures upon a particular subject which I have in- 
vestigated, with the assured conviction, however, that 
an author who publishes a book, or a lecturer who 
discourses upon a scientific or any other subject, should 
h.diVQ four prominent objects in view : 

1st. Something new. 

2d. Something important. 

3d. Something true. 

4th. Something intelligible. 
The reasonableness and propriety of each of those 
objects will be apparent upon a moment's consideration. 
1st. It should be one prominent aim of a writer or 
lecturer to produce something neiu^ either by the dis- 
covery of latent facts, or the correction of untruths 
and false theories in science, or the systematic classi- 
fication of facts long known, but long scattered in 
chaotic and useless confusion. For, to lecture or 
write upon any subject, without advancing new 
thoughts, or suggesting something which has not 
already been suggested by authors or by lecturers, 
seems to be ''treading in the footsteps of our illustri- 
ous predecessors " to no very material advantage to 



1 6 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

the world. This, I am aware, is often done. A very 
considerable number of books which, year after 
year, emanate from the press, and no small share of 
the lectures delivered upon the sciences, are nothing 
more nor less than the repetition of old ideas in a nev/ 
garb to prevent the petty plagiarism from being too 
barefaced, and that garb, too, oftentimes made less 
elegant and less attractive than the original. Some- 
thing higher than this should be the aim of a lecturer. 
No bold, independent and vigorous thinker — none 
but a mere intellectual parrot, would stoop to such 
servile imitation of others, when before him lies, 
spread out in endless perspective, a vast, unexplored, 
immeasurable wilderness of knowledge, which would 
give scope for ages upon ages, yea, for eternity itself, 
to the untamed energies of the most powerful intellect 
that men or angels ever saw. 

But it must be acknowledged that the fortune of 
him who has thus forsaken the beaten path of gene- 
rations, and has aimed at originality, has not often 
been an enviable one. Such an one has frequently 
ascertained, by bitter experience, how hard it was to 
" climb the steep, where Fame's proud temple shines 
afar." He has often found that the untrodden course 
which he has marked out for himself has been any- 
thing but a flowery path. Briars and thorns have 
grown thickly there. In it he has encountered the 
chilling blasts of poverty — the discouraging dissua- 
sions of friends — oftentimes a concentrated and ma- 
licious chorus of serpent hisses from enemies, and has 
been pointed at with the finger of scorn, as a poor, 
crazy enthusiast, or a visionary builder of air-castles. 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 1/ 

This conclusion will be irresistibly forced upon the 
mind of any one who carefully consults the records 
of the past. When the celebrated William Wirt 
remarked, with regard to the perils of innovation, 
" Woe betide the hand that plucks the wizard beard of 
hoary error!' — he was doubtless looking at the his- 
tory of bygone time. Men used to regard the slight- 
est encroachment upon established laws in politics ^ 
religion and science^ how glaringly erroneous-soever 
those laws might have been, as reckless and wicked 
foolhardiness. Facts in abundance prove this. A 
Columbus, a Newton, and a Fulton might promulgate 
new theories of the utmost importance, and sustain 
and defend them with argument piled upon argument 
mountain-high — with argument upon argument, too, 
the most rational, conclusive and convincing, and 
they would invariably fail for a long time to convince. 
Prejudice, like an ancient mail-coat of steel, enclosed 
the mind, and warded off the shafts of conviction. 
Many men, and even men reputed to be scientific, 
would obstinately persist in scepticism, until actually 
forced to believe, by the common sense and the com7non 
opinion of the world around them — until the truth 
of rejected theories would blaze upon that scepticism 
with such overpowering intensity as to consume it, 
and make those who harbored it either ashamed of 
their extreme dulncss of apprehension, or else of their 
dogged obstinacy. 

The days of such prejudice and scepticism are, 
however, evidently passing away. It is true that men 
are cautioua how they give a ready credence to nov- 
elties in theory or in practice, but, as a general thing, 



1 8 A NEW PHIL O SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

perhaps not too cautious. A certain watchfulness is 
doubtless necessary for the safeguard of the bulwarks 
of truth from sacrilegious and ruthless innovation. 
But further than this, incredulity at the present day 
scarcely goes. So rapid, so surprising and so success- 
ful have been and are still the improvements and dis- 
coveries of the age, that puzzled scepticism stands 
confounded and amazed, not knowing what to say or 
scarcely what to think. A very great change has 
come over the opinions and feelings of the world. 
Theories in science may now be promulgated, which 
discredit all preconceived sentiments upon the subject 
at issue, and explode them, and still they will receive 
a candid and respectful hearing from an intelligent 
community — and if they happen to be supported by 
even the plausibility of argument, that thinking com- 
munity will not reject, even if it do not embrace them. 
There will only be a suspension of judgment for more 
light. This is zuisdom. By such a course of policy, 
truth in science is sure to triumph, and error to be 
overthrown and discredited, however subtlely inter- 
woven with the maxims and policies of society, and 
however supported by the authority of great names. 

2d. It should be another prominent object of an 
author or lecturer to suggest something important. 
For it should ever be kept in recollection, that *' all is 
not gold that shines," and that, although *' variety is 
the spice of life," yet that which is new is not always 
important or valuable. Ideas may have originality, 
and yet, at the same time, they may be either as sim- 
ple as the babbling and nonsense of mere idiocy, or 
as unreal as the wildest and most incoherent ravings 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 1 9 

of stark madness — the likeness of nothing in the heaven 
above, or in the earth beneath, or within the whole 
wide regions of sober thought. Matter then, worthy 
of the attention of intelligent society, must not only be 
novel, but iniportmtt. 

3d. Another prominent object of an author or 
lecturer should be to promulgate somethmg true. For 
ideas may be both ?iovel and important, and yet, if 
they are incorrect — if they lack the very essential 
support of incontrovertible fact, they are unworthy of 
credence. Without this, a theory may be both beau- 
tiful and grand, but must be as evanescent as it is 
beautiful, and as substantial as it is grand. 

The example of Sir Isaac Newton is well worthy 
of the attention of scholars and authors. His discrim- 
inating intellect promptly and invariably rejected 
every theory and every proposition, however plausi- 
ble, which had not the firm and imperishable basis of 
fact and conclusive demonstration. He jumped at no 
conclusion, but came to it step by step, through the 
path of 'clear, patient, and logical deduction. Away 
from his presence, he sternly rebuked everything 
like surmise and conjecture, and gave no audience for 
a moment to anything which bore not the character- 
istic features of scientific truth. In this respect, imi- 
tation of him would not be reprehensible. It would 
rather be a mark of wisdom. 

But 4th — to cap the climax, an author or lecturer 
should aim to promulgate soinctJii/ig iiitcilii^iMe. This 
is quite as indispensable as anything else. Vor 
thoughts may be fiovcl and ini/^or/auf, and ha\'o on- 
stamped upon them the characteristics of imnuiiablc 



20 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

truth, and yet, if they be not expressed so as to be 
intelligible, they might just as v/ell not be expressed 
at all. The professed object of all language, either 
oral or written, is to convey ideas to the minds of those 
to whom it is addressed. But language which is not 
understood accomplishes not the object for which it 
was invented, or, if it be understood by only one tenth, 
then niiu tenths are excluded from its benefits, just as 
much as if they were required to decipher the mean- 
ing of the obsolete Egyptian hieroglyphics. 

Now if an author or a lecturer have ideas to com- 
municate, which seem to be sufficiently novel, impor- 
ta7it and tr2ie to warrant their promulgation, what 
should he do ? Should he adapt his remarks exclu- 
sively to the taste and the comprehension of the few, 
who can emphatically be called the literati? Should 
he discourse learnedly in that technical phraseology, 
which, either from an imagined convenience, or else 
from the impulses of pedantic vanity, has been invented 
for the sciences, and which is as little understood by 
the mass of readers as if those sciences were clothed 
in the dialect of one of the dead languages ? Should 
he be ambitious to throw an air of mysterious pro- 
fundity and scientific dignity around his remarks, or 
should he be mainly solicitous to be understood by 
all, and to adapt his language to the capacities of all 
of moderate attainments, either by avoiding altogether 
the use of blind and fresh-coined technical terms, or 
else by fully explaining those which the imperious 
dictate of custom has made necessary and indispen- 
sable ? There can be but one opinion upon this sub- 
ject. The universal sentiment would doubtless be in 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS, 21 ^' 

favor of plainness. Aim to be understood, instead of 
displaying ostentation, would be the dictate of common 
sense. This can be done without sacrificing a proper 
dignity of expression or condescending either to a 
vulgar coarseness and rudeness of language, or a low 
and childish puerility of remark. It can be done, too, 
without offending the taste even of the most fastidious 
among the scientific, or forfeiting the approbation of 
those who combine a commendable public spirit with 
extensive acquirements, and who wish to see knowl- 
edge widely disseminated among the mass. 

Those four prominent objects, which have been 
thus considered separately, and which should be those 
of every author or lecturer, will be the landmarks by 
which I purpose to be guided in a proposed series of 
lectures upon the imponderable agents of chemistry. 
It is my purpose that they shall contain novelty, im- 
portance^ triitJi, and be made, if possible, iiitelligible. 

Floating through books and periodicals, various 
indefinite surmises or conjectures, respecting the sub- 
jects which I purpose to discuss, are to be found 
scattered here and there, but all confused. Nothing 
is systematized or affirmed with positive confidence 
and certainty, or supported with a proper array of 
facts and arguments, except in a single instance, in 
that almost unknown, but yet invaluable scientific 
jewel — Dr. Metcalf 's " New Theory of Terrestrial 
Magnetism," published in 1833, in which he assumes 
and proves, by logical demonstrations which cannot 
be successfully controverted, that Calorie is FJeetrieiiy. 
After having written and lectured u[hmi Uiis sub- 
ject in Baltimoi-c and other places in 1S3S, 1 was 



22 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

favored by a friend with the perusal of this work, and 
was agreeably surprised to find a perfect coincidence 
between our views, so far as caloric is concerned. By 
subsequent investigations I have come to the con- 
clusion that not only caloric, but that all the other 
imponderables are one and the same agent — that 
Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism, Light, Caloric, 
Gravitation, the Attraction of Cohesion, Capillary 
Attraction, and Chemical Attraction are only different 
modifications of the same essential principle. 

If this be true, as I hope, by facts and arguments 
to prove, then there is an entirely new and unexplored 
field opened before the student in chemistry and nat- 
ural philosophy. By it, many things will be exploded 
as false, which have heretofore been taught in the 
schools as scientific truths, and many things will be 
systematized and simplified which have been compli- 
cated, confused, and unintelligible. It seems to lead 
directly to the adoption of this one broad and com- 
prehensive proposition — the basis or substratum of 
all knowledge. 

There are, of the productions of creative power, three 
distinct essences, or essential prijiciples in the universe, and 
BUT three, and everything created and finite, of which 
we either have or can have any conception, whether it be 
a7iimate or inanimate — physical, animal, or intellectual^ 
can be referred to one or the other of these three essential 
principles, as to its itative, legitimate, proper basis or sub- 
stratum. 

This proposition, it will be seen, embraces within 
its comprehensive scope the whole illimitable domain 
of science, both visible and invisible. Sceptics in the 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 23 

republic of letters, or old-fashioned book-worms, who 
regard the slightest encroachment upon what they 
may have read, as sacrilege, will doubtless call this 
proposition sweeping and chimerical. But sweeping 
and chimerical as it may, however, seem to them or 
to others, it is believed, nevertheless, to be capable 
of satisfactory and even perfectly conclusive and 
logical demonstration, as will be shown hereafter. 

The names of those three fundamental principles 
we will here give in their natural order, together with 
a concise definition of their properties. 

The first we shall call Ponderable Matter^ it being 
the same technical epithet which is used in standard 
works. By this term we include all those substances 
of every name and form which are tangible — which 
can be noticed or appreciated by most of the senses 
by which we acquire ideas of external objects — 
which are measurable, and which have magnitude 
and weight. 

The properties or qualities of this first essential 
principle of the created universe we consider to be 
perfect inertness and inherent dormancy, meaning by 
those terms, that a substance under their influence 
has no activity or disposition to activity in itself — 
that it has therefore no power of changing itself, or 
of communicating motion to itself, cither by compo- 
nent parts, or in the aggregate or whole — that It 
would, therefore, remain forever changeless, as when 
left at creation, and forever unvaried by modification, 
a cold, motionless mass of Inertia or sluggishness, 
unless operated upon by foreign agencies, sufficiently 
powerful to overcome that Inherent disposition to 
remain forever sluggish and unmoved. 



24 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

The second essential principle embraced in our 
proposition we shall call Imponderable Matter, it being, 
also, the same technical epithet by which it is desig- 
nated in the text -books. By this term I include 
Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism, Light, Heat or 
Caloric, Gravitation, the Attraction of Cohesion, Cap- 
illary Attraction and Chemical Attraction. These 
are all, in their nature, alike intangible. That is, they 
cannot be handled so as to be examined like ponder- 
able substances of the first class. They are inappre- 
ciable by most of the senses, immeasurable, and have 
no perceptible magnitude or weight. 

This imp 07ider able principle is entirely distinct and 
different from ponderable matter, not derivable from 
it, but perfectly independent of it, and yet having such 
a natural affinity for it, by the inscrutable attraction 
of opposites, which seems to be an immutable law of 
nature, as to pervade it completely. Not a single 
particle of ponderable matter is there in creation — 
not an atom borne on the atmosphere — not a single 
mote floating in the sunbeam, but what is attended by 
its appropriate share of the imponderable principle, 
when all the elements are in equilibrium. 

This wonderful and mysterious agent is extremely 
subtle — so subtle that it is invisible and impercept- 
ible, except when condensed into the electric spark, 
or accumulated by the galvanic battery, or poured 
down upon us in the light of day, or gathered 
into focal intensity by the lens or burning-glass, or 
exploded in the thunderbolt of the clouds, or collected 
together into that capacious reservoir of electric fire 
— the sun. Elasticity unbounded is one of its char- 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 2$ 

acteristics, and its activity is inherent and more rest- 
less than the ocean wave, it being always in motion, 
for, if the balance of the elements be disturbed at all, 
and there be, anywhere in creation, a partial vacuum, 
or an abstraction of the subtle fluid, so far as to make 
that spot minus with regard to surrounding regions, 
it rushes in with irresistible velocity, and restores that 
disturbed balance. Rapidity inconceivable charac- 
terizes its movements. If impeded in the slightest 
degree in its everlasting career, and accumulated and 
restrained by appropriate exciting causes, it exhibits 
a fearful energy — an energy perfectly overwhelming, 
and bursts its bands with infinitely greater ease than 
did the unshorn Samson. 

It is that agent, independent of ponderable matter, 
at which we have already hinted, which pervades it 
omnipresently, according to certain definite laws, 
which will hereafter be explained, having a natural 
affinity for it, and possessing inherent power sufficient 
to overcome its inertia or sluggishness, to work all 
the chemical changes and produce all the motions 
in it, whether on the scale of atoms, or of worlds, or 
of constellations of worlds. It, in fact, seems to be 
the very representative of Deity himself, expressly 
appointed and commissioned to produce the multi- 
form and almost countless transformations of matter 
— all the chemical changes of decomposition and re- 
composition, which are constantly progressing around 
us and throughout nature, and, by its inherent energy, 
and the activity which it imparts, to keep up the mo- 
tions of the universe of material systems, and to in- 
vigorate both the animal and vegetable life, in its 
3 



26 A NEW PHIL OS PHY OF MA TTER. 

myriad forms, with which those systems are fur- 
nished. 

Some materialist may here draw the confident con- 
clusion from what I have asserted, that imponderable 
matter is mind^ and that it is the only Deity in the uni- 
verse. No such conclusion, however, results necessa- 
rily from the premises. Instead of favoring the doc- 
trine of materialism in the slightest degree, I pledge 
myself to be prepared to show in its proper place in 
the series of lectures, that from this source alone can 
be drawn the most powerful and convincing arguments 
which can possibly be drawn from nature to over- 
throw that doctrine. I am not one of those who 
tremble to acknowledge an undeniable fact, lest that 
fact should seem, forsooth, to militate against my 
creed. The God of nature never would have created 
an agent, or have established a law, which, when dis- 
covered^ and fully understood, would militate against 
his divinity, or undeify himself in the estimation of a 
sound philosopher. We must never deny the evidence 
of our senses, and discredit incontrovertible facts, lest, 
peradventure, our belief ^o\Adi be overthrown by them, 
but should endeavor, by ingenuous and candid inves- 
tigation, to ascertain how they can be reconciled with 
our belief. 

We now come, naturally, to the third essential 
principle of the created universe, which we denominate 
mhid. Pure ethereality seems to be its constituent 
property, which term, we think, will correctly define 
its nature, if, in the acknowledged vagueness, loose- 
ness, and imperfection of language, all shall attach to 
it an appropriate signification. The intellect is no 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 2/ 

more a substance or the emanation of a substance, 
than thought or a train of thought is substance. As 
the emanations and exhalations, or the minute parti- 
cles flying off from matter are matter also, so mind is, 
and, of necessity, must be, in the inherent fitness of 
things, of the same nature of its exhalations, which 
we know are thotight, mtelligence , moral feeling, and 
volition — properties which may be truly said to be 
sometlmtg or realities, though there be no materiality 
about them. Who, for instance, would affirm that an 
idea is matter? Has it length, breadth and thickness, 
either perceptible or imperceptible, as have all the 
particles of matter, either ponderable or imponder- 
able, how minute soever they may be ? To attempt 
seriously to disprove such a proposition would be too 
much like battling, with Quixotic valiancy, the unsub- 
stantial shadows which chase each other over the 
landscape. Such an attempt would sufficiently es- 
tablish a man's claim to the diploma of a confirmed 
Bedlamite, and would entitle him, beyond all contro- 
versy, to a straight-jacket, and an introduction to the 
benevolent hospitalities of a mad-house. Such a 
proposition is too preposterously absurd for a single 
moment's belief The influence which the intellect, 
or its controlling power, the will, exerts over the other 
two fundamental principles of creation, entirely pre- 
cludes such a belief For, as the imponderable prin- 
ciple controls the ponderable, so mind controls both 
the one and the other. 

The intellect, or will of the carpenter, for instance, 
controls the muscles of his physical frame, through 
the action of the nervous fluid or animal elcctricitv 



28 A NEW PHTL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

upon those muscles, and, by the strength and motions 
of his physical frame, so controlled, the edifice is con- 
structed, and the grand, the beautiful, and the sym- 
metrical in architecture are made to adorn the dome, 
the temple, and the various other fabrications of the 
mechanic arts. 

The imponderable principle is, also, subject directly 
to the volition of intellect, although it has no guiding 
will of its own. 

A Franklin, for instance, could extract the subtle 
fires from the storm-cloud, as it passed over head, 
with his electrical kite, and conduct the red and 
crashing bolt harmless to the earth by his lightning- 
rod. 

Galvani and his successors could extract the same 
fiery fluid from a certain association of zinc, copper 
and the acids, in a stream strong enough to burn iron 
like tinder. 

So we have seen that there are three created princi- 
ples in the universe, each entirely diverse from the 
others, the first being under the control of the second, 
and both the first and second under the control of the 
third, as will be conclusively demonstrated in that 
part of the following lectures in which the philosophy 
of Animal Magnetism will be investigated. 

There is, in the universe, still another principle, — 
if it be right to call the same a principle — which I 
have not included in my classification, because it comes 
not within the list of created substances. Its attributes 
are Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence and 
Eternity, as they must, of necessity be, in the very 
inherent nature and fitness of things, if uncreated or 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 29 

self-existent, for an uncreated agent could not possibly 
be otherwise than infinite. 

This self-existent, eternal principle we call Deity. 
Beyond Him we hold that there can be nothing 
either created or uncreated, finite or infinite. He 
embraces and controls and pervades and governs 
everything. As electricity governs inert matter, and 
created mind governs both, in a certain sense, so this 
fourth mysterious, incomprehensible, all-pervading 
Essence gives immutable, irresistible laws to the 
whole three in an unlimited sense, and does precisely 
what he wills throughout the whole illimitable vast- 
ness of both duration and space. 

In proof of the positions which I have, in a meas- 
ure, assumed, without having defended them with 
illustration and argument in the present lecture, the 
following work will consist of thirteen lectures more, in 
which it will be my object to investigate minutely the 
properties, laws, and peculiar agencies of the three 
essential principles of creation, together with an occa- 
sional allusion to the uncreated fourth, or the Supreme 
Architect. And I design, also, as definitely as possi- 
ble, to show the relationship whioh exists between 
those three essential principles. 

The first subject of investigation will be common 
electricity. I shall show how it was discovered, what 
are the immutable laws by which it is ever governed, 
and what are the manifold and powerful agencies or 
influences which it exerts over matter, in the pro- 
duction of all chemical changes and all chemical 
analyses. 

I shall then investigate, in their appro[Miatc order, 
3* 



30 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

the other imponderables, viz.: Galvanism, Magnetism, 
Light, Heat or Caloric, Gravitation, the Attraction of 
Cohesion, Capillary Attraction, Chemical Attraction, 
and Animal Magnetism, and show that they are gov- 
erned by precisely the same laws as common elec- 
tricity, that they exert the self-same influences over 
inert matter, and that they are, therefore, the same in- 
dividual agent, though known by a variety of names, 
and exhibited under a variety of modifications. 

During the course of this investigation, I shall en- 
deavor to show that the sun is the grand reservoir 
of electricity — the great galvanic battery of the solar 
system — that its influence over the planets is electric 
■ — that their motions, both diurnal and annual, are 
produced by that influence, in accordance with those 
electrical laws of attraction and repulsion which can 
be tested in the laboratory upon little pith balls — that 
the attraction of gravitation, as well as that of cohe- 
sion, is caused by the light and caloric of the sun, in 
their operation upon the material of the earthy in con- 
stituting it a magnet — that terrestrial magnetism 
and the north and south polarity of the earth, which 
attract and guide the needle of the mariner's compass, 
are produced by the same cause ; that the reason why 
the needle points to the north and south, rather than 
to the east and west, is because electricity, it is now 
well known, influences and guides it, and because 
those streams of caloric or solar heat, which, in obe- 
dience to an immutable law of nature, run continually 
from the equatorial regions to the point of greatest 
cold in the polar regions, is that same electricity — that 
that point of maximum cold is proven, by the obser- 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. %! 

vations of navigators, in their voyages of exploration 
in the high latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic seas, 
to be the magnetic pole of the earth both north and 
south, which varies from the geographic pole, in some 
seasons fifteen degrees or more — that the Aurora 
Borealis and Aurora Australis,or Northern and South- 
ern Lights;, stream up from these points of greatest 
cold, or the magnetic poles of the earth, and are, 
therefore, the electricity or caloric that runs contin- 
ually from the equator to those magnetic poles, and 
there passes outward and upward, into the rarer 
regions of the atmosphere in its circuit, and forms 
precisely the same lambent, nebulous, waving appear- 
ance which electricity exhibits when passing through 
an exhausted glass tube, or any other exhausted 
medium. 

I shall endeavor, also, to demonstrate, by conclusive 
proof, that it is the vivifying principle of both animal 
and vegetable life, and, as far as possible, in a science 
as abstruse as this, to show how it operates — that it 
is the active efficient agent of both the decomposition 
and the recomposition of the organic structure of men 
and animals, which is continually going on — that its 
application in cases of disease, by those who under- 
stand thoroughly its laws and chemical agencies, is 
of invaluable consequence, whether it be by ma- 
chinery or by animal magnetism, and that by its scien- 
tific and proper application, it can be made to cure 
epilepsies, apoplexies, palsies, rheumatism, fever 
and ague, and, indeed, almost every other disease 
that " flesh is heir to," except old age, and both Jioiv 
and wliy^ in most cases, it can be done — that it can 



32 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

be done by known and tested chemical agencies, in 
strict accordance with immutable chemical law. 

And, finally, I will endeavor to show what influence 
mind has over this subtle agent, in producing the 
motions of the human body, and wherein that influ- 
ence is different from the choice or instinct, which 
controls the motions of brutes, by which I shall prove 
that animal magnetism, so far from being a ''miser- 
able humbug!' is a sublime science, which can be sus- 
tained by as many incontestable proofs as any science 
under heaven — proofs, too, which, if any man would 
seriously doubt, he must first doubt the evidence of 
his own senses, or his own personal identity. 

I shall also show that animal magnetism, so far 
from having a tendency, as some suppose, to bring the 
truths of our holy religion into disrepute and discredit, 
lends a most efficient and powerful aid to sustain 
them, and, rightly considered, must lead every candid 
mind to the conclusion, that we are, in truth, ''fear- 
fully and wonderfully madeT 

In the discussion* of those subjects, it will be per- 
ceived, by a perusal of the following pages, that I 
have, in many parts, adopted the argumentative style, 
based upon a few choice facts, selected from a mass 
that might have been collocated and inserted, and 
that, in some places, the thread of argumentation is 
drawn out somewhat attenuated. 

This has been done purposely, from the fact that I 
was aware that many, and indeed almost all of the 
most important positions taken, were 7tovel, and needed, 
of consequence, to be defended, at every apparently 
assailable point, from the attacks of prejudice. 



THE IMPONDERABLE AGENTS. 33 

After having spread these views, however, before 
the public, in this manner, it is my intention, when 
the novelty of the theory shall have worn off, and 
critics shall have exhausted their quiver, and fired at 
it their last shaft, and it shall, perhaps, have gained 
here and there a solitary advocate, to prepare, out of 
the substance of the materials here furnished, a class- 
book for schools, adapted to the present improved 
state of chemistry and philosophy. 

C 



LECTURE 11. 

COMMON ELECTRICITY. 

THE subject of the present lecture is Common Elec- 
tricity, I distinguish it by the epithet of ''com- 
-fnon,'' not because there is any essential difference 
between it and galvanism or its other modifications, 
but because the phenomena which we shall investigate 
in the present lecture are those which have been the 
longest and the most universally known, and, with the 
manifestations of which, all are more or less familiar. 
This subject we intend to examine critically and 
very minutely, for upon it is based an important 
science, and, in order to understand that science 
thoroughly, we must thoroughly investigate its ele- 
mentary principles. By the unerring test of experi- 
ment, we shall, upon a small scale, within the imme- 
diate purview of the senses, determine the laws and 
the agencies by which it is ever governed. Having 
ascertained these with satisfactory certainty, they will 
serve the valuable purpose of a chart, a compass and 
a pilot, as it were, upon the broad and interminable 
ocean of investigation, far from the sight of land. 
Yes, with these valuable auxiliaries, we can enter the 
vast laboratory of nature, and show how, upon a 
large scale, the planets are wheeled upon their axes, 
and impelled in their mystic dance around the sun, 

34 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 35 

by the self-same force that attracts and repels pith 
balls. For no one will dispute the fact, that the 
aggregate or whole is governed by the very same 
laws and agencies by which the individual parts and 
particles of that whole are governed. This proposi- 
tion will be found to be unerringly true, apply it where 
you may, and as extensively as you may. The law 
by which an atom gravitates, or several atoms cohere 
or cling together, is the law precisely by which worlds 
gravitate and cohere. The laws by which a drop of 
water is held in a globulous state are the same pre- 
cisely which hold the ocean together. There is no 
deception in nature. She is no coquette. She speaks 
the language of uniformity and consistency through- 
out her wide dominions, and you will never find her 
conduct, at one time, or in one respect, at variance 
with her conduct in another. Having ascertained a 
fact or law in physics, beyond the possibility of mis- 
take or the shadow of a doubt, other facts and other 
laws, bearing a relation to the same thing, will, when 
discovered, uniformly and universally sustain the 
first fact or law. This admirable certainty and uni- 
formity in the operations of nature enable astron- 
omers to foretell eclipses for years before their occur- 
rence with confidence, and to the definitcness of a 
single moment, to predict the transits of Venus, and 
give almost the precise data, even, for the flight and 
return of the eccentric comet. 

I^^lectricity was first detected or discovered in a sub- 
stance called, in English, amber, which substance in 
the original Greek was called clcchvji fi-om which the 
term electricity is derived. This word elect roN is also 



36 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

derived from electore, another Greek word, which sig- 
nifies, the beaming sun, and, if it does not indicate that 
the ancients supposed the sun to be the fountain of 
this subtle fluid, it at least develops a remarkable 
accidental coincidence. 

Thales, a celebrated Grecian of the city of Miletus 
in Ionia, who lived 600 years before the Christian 
era, and who was the contemporary of Pythagoras, 
is reputed to be the discoverer of this remarkable 
property of amber. He ascertained, probably by 
accident, that when rubbed, it acquired the power of 
attracting to itself certain light bodies in its immediate 
vicinity. For the want of amber, the student can 
illustrate the phenomenon with a stick of sealing-wax. 

Familiarity with facts should never be suffered to 
lessen their interest, nor should we overlook the sim- 
plest truths, for a thorough knowledge of those sim- 
plest truths often leads to the discovery of the grand- 
est and most sublime, while he that despises the 
day of small things, will, probably, never live to see 
the day of large things. The most magnificent results 
often thus originate. The dim dawning of the morn- 
ing precedes the blaze of the meridian. The diminu- 
tive acorn springs up and becomes an oak, monarch 
of the forest. The majestic Amazon first issues as a 
little rill on the eastern declivity of the Andes. A 
neglected spark kindles a conflagration, and millions 
of wealth are lost in ashes. So with a thousand other 
facts. Their origin is simple, but their results are 
grand. 

As the sealing-wax before being rubbed is passed 
over little bits of paper prepared for the purpose, they 



COMMON ELECTRICITY, 3/ 

are perfectly quiescent. Both are in a state of natural 
equilibrium or balance. Having excited it, however, 
by friction, it immediately exhibits a singular power 
unknown to it before. In this little experiment, tri- 
fling and simple as it may appear, there are treasured 
up volumes of wonder and inscrutable mystery, enough 
to puzzle for ages the clear-sighted penetration of a 
Newton himself What is it that first diffuses over 
those bits of paper a tremulous quiver, then sets them 
upright, as if alive, and then makes them leap up, as 
if either in affection or in anger, to the cause of their 
momentary animation ? Echo only answers : " What 
is it?" The chemist is puzzled and silent, the books 
answer not, and no one can tell. The influence of 
the charmed sealing-wax over those bits of paper is 
beyond the comprehension of the most gigantic in- 
tellect. All that can be known is that it is electricity ^ 
and that its operations are guided by certain fixed 
and immutable laws. 

No wonder Thales stood in astonishment, when he 
made the discovery. No wonder he thought the 
amber animated with a principle of vitality. The 
emotions of the mind, when a grand fundamental or 
elementary truth first breaks upon it, arc unutterable, 
and cannot be apprehended by the dull phlegmatic, 
who always plods along in the beaten path of his 
grandfathers. Such emotions often find vent in excla- 
mations similar to those of Archimedes in Greek, 
when he had discovered the solution of a difficult 
problem, upon which he had been long and intensely 
studying. In ecstasy he exclaimed : *' Eureka ! lU- 
reka .^ " — " / have found it ! I have found it ! " 
4 



38 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

Before proceeding, it may be proper to remark 
that Thales was no ordinary man. " Like most of 
the ancient Grecian sages, he travelled into Egypt, 
lived in that country several years, contracted friend- 
ships with the priests, then the depositaries of science, 
became deeply skilled in all their mysteries and learn- 
ing, and, returning to his own country deeply stored 
with the knowledge of the East, he ranked as the 
first of the seven wise men of Greece, and became 
the founder of the Ionic school." Apuleius, an elo- 
quent writer of the second century, thus speaks of 
him : 

** Thales, the Milesian, was decidedly the most em- 
inent of the seven famous sages ; for he was the first 
inventor of geometry among the Greeks, the most 
judicious inquirer into the causes or nature of things, 
the most skilful observer of the stars ; he made great 
discoveries by small geometrical lines, in the regu- 
lation of times and seasons, the theory of the winds, 
the course of the stars, the wonderful causes of thunder ^ 
the oblique motions of the planets, the revolution of 
the sun, and the reason of the increase, decrease and 
eclipse of the moon." 

From the time of Thales to that of Theophrastus, 
a disciple of Aristotle, who lived between two and 
three centuries after him, no new discoveries were 
made in electricity, which is somewhat surprising, 
since it is no local or occasional agent, but coeval 
with time, pervading all substances omnipresently, 
and being the palpable cause of some of the grandest 
scenes in nature. 

In a work of Theophrastus, entitled in Greek, ''Peri 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 39 

Lithane,'' he ascribes the same property which Thales 
discovered in electron to the lapis lyncurius, the sub- 
stance now called tourmaline. '' It possesses," says 
he, ''an attractive power, like amber, and, as they say, 
attracts not only straws and leaves, but copper also 
and iron, if in small particles." 

From the period of Theophrastus, no allusion is 
made by authors, for more than two thousand years, 
to any but the discoveries already noticed, and there- 
fore more than twenty-three centuries elapsed from 
the observations of Thales, before any material addi- 
tion was made to the stock of electrical knowledge. 
Since that, for the last two centuries, its accumulations 
have been vastly more rapid and increasingly impor- 
tant. 

In 1600, William Gilbert, physician to King James 
I., in a Latin work entitled ''De Magncte, vtagnctcsqiie 
covporibus^' gives a description, towards its close, of a 
great variety of electrical experiments, entirely new. 

A fresh impulse appears to have been given, during 
this century, to the study of electricity, by the dis- 
covery of the phenomena of magnetism, as it seemed 
in some respects to possess properties similar to the 
loadstone. 

By his experiments, Dr. Gilbert added largely to 
the meagre list of electrical substances. He ascer- 
tained that diamonds, sapphires, carbuncles, iris, opals, 
amethysts, beryl, crystal, bristol - stones, sulphur, 
mastic, hard wax, hard rosin, arsenic, sal -gem, 
rock-aluni, common glass, and stibium, or glass of 
antimony, have the power, when excited, to attract 
light bodies, and that this influence is not onl\' ex- 



40 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER, 

erted over leaves and straw, but, indeed, over all 
matter, which is not extremely rare. He also ascer- 
tained that friction was necessary to produce electrical 
phenomena, that it was most potential when light and 
quick, and that electrics could be most strongly and 
permanently excited when the air was dry and the 
wind north or east. 

For the want of suitable apparatus, this philosopher 
encountered many obstacles, as did all the rest of the 
early investigators of the science. His experiments 
were principally made v/ith long, thin pieces of metal, 
and other substances freely suspended on their centres, 
to the extremities of which he presented the electrics 
he had excited. 

Thirty years after the publication of ^^De Magnete, 
magnetesqiie corporibus^^' the celebrated Sir Kenelm 
Digby, in his "Treatise Concerning the Nature of 
Bodies," expresses the following singular notions re- 
specting the influences of electricity : 

''Attraction," says he, "is made by an attenuated 
emanation or a continuous effluvium, which, after some 
distance, retracteth into itself, as is observable in 
drops of syrups, oils, &c., which, spun at length, retire 
to their dimensions. Now these effluviums, advanc- 
ing from the body of the electric, in their return do 
carry back the bodies whereon they have laid hold 
within the sphere or circle of their continuities ; and 
these they do not only attract, but, with their viscous 
arms, hold fast a good while after, and if any shall 
wonder why these effluviums, issuing forth, impel and 
protrude not the straw before they can bring it back, 
it is because the effluvium, passing out in a smaller 



COMMON ELECTRICITY, 4I 

thread and more enlengthened filament, stirreth not 
the bodies interposed, but returning into its original, 
falls into a closer substance and carrieth them back 
into itself." 

Such fanciful hypotheses may be amusing, and 
exhibit an inventive ideality, but should never be 
indulged by a philosopher, in the form of positive 
assertions, unattended by positive proof, as in the 
quotation just made. They advance not true knowl- 
edge, but rather becloud and bedim it. 

The learned Mr. Boyle, by his investigations towards 
the close of the seventeenth century, enlarged the 
catalogue of electrics somewhat, and ascertained, by 
his experiments, that the electrical properties of bodies 
are increased by wiping and warming them, before 
they are rubbed. Bodies of all kinds he supposed 
were attracted indiscriminately, and that this attrac- 
tion took place in a vacuum as well as in the open 
air. 

To this time philosophers had supposed that elec- 
tricity possessed only an attractive power. For Dr. 
Gilbert, in his ^^ De Magnctc, viagnctcsquc corporibiisy 
remarked that magnetism possesses both an attractive 
and a repulsive power, but that electricity possesses 
the latter but not the former. Boyle, however; ap- 
proached so far towards the discovery of repulsion, 
that he remarked that feathers and other light bodies 
would cling to his fingers after they had been attracted 
by electrics. 

Otto Guericke, who lived contemporary with Mr. 
Boyle, and who is famed for his invention oi the air- 
pump, made still further discoveries and itnprovcincnts. 
4^ 



42 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

He made use of a sulphur globe, whirled on an axis 
much in the same way as our present glass globes. By 
this apparatus he could accumulate a greater amount 
of electricity than had hitherto been accumulated, and 
was, therefore, enabled to experiment with greater 
success and certainty than his predecessors. To him 
is due the honor of making the first full and satisfac- 
tory discovery of electric repulsion. " A body once 
attracted," says he, '' by an excited electric, is repelled 
by it, and not attracted again until it has touched 
some other body." He kept a feather for a long time 
suspended in the air above his sulphur globe, and 
made also the remarkable discovery that, when repelled 
by an excited body, it always keeps the same face 
towards that body, as the moon does towards the 
earth. 

Both Mr. Boyle* and Otto Guericke discovered the 
electric light simultaneously, the one, as he supposed, 
in the diamond, and the other in his excited globe. 

Dr. Wall about the same time discovered it in a 
still more satisfactory manner, which I will give in 
his own words : 

" I found," says he, '' upon swiftly drawing a well- 
polished piece of amber in the dark, through a piece 
of woollen cloth, and squeezing it pretty hard with my 
hand a prodigious number of little cracklings were 
heard, and every one of them produced a flash of light, 
but when the amber was drawn gently and slightly 
through the cloth, it produced only a light, but no 
crackling ; but by holding one's finger at a little dis- 
tance from the amber, a large crackling is produced, 
with a great flash of light succeeding it, and, what to 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 43 

me is very surprising, upon its eruption it strikes the 
finger very sensibly, wheresoever applied, with a push 
or a puff like wind. This light and crackling seems, 
in some respects, to represent thunderand lightning." 

Sir Isaac Newton next made the discovery of a fact, 
which has often been disputed, but which is very nec- 
essary in establishing the theory which I assume, that 
both electric attraction and repulsion will penetrate 
through glass. 

Mr. Hawkesby, next in chronological order, wrote, 
in 1709, a treatise on electricity, in which he pub- 
lished a variety of new facts with regard to attraction 
and repulsion, and the nature of electric light, sup- 
posing it to be phosphoric. Others who first 
observed it at this period adopted the same opinion. 

About twenty years after, when the excitement 
produced am^ong scholars by Newton's wonderful 
discoveries in Natural Philosophy had, in a measure, 
subsided, Mr. Grey turned his attention to the subject 
of electricity, and by him was discovered the distinction 
which exists between electrics and non - electrics, 
forming a new era in the history of the science. But 
as a detailed account of the interesting experiments 
which he made and published in the " Philosophical 
Transactions" for 1729 would be altogether too volu- 
minous for the circumscribed limits of the present 
lecture, I shall simply allude to the fact, and pass on 
to the consideration of other important topics and 
experiments. 

Thus far I have glanced rapidly, and in as brief a 
manner as I well could, at the history of the rise and 
progress of this science, and less than this I could not 



44 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

well have done, consistent with a thorough examina- 
tion of the subject. And what is the sum of our in- 
vestigations thus far? It is this : 

Amber and a great variety of other substances are 
capable of exhibiting electrical phenomena. Friction 
is, generally speaking, the cause of the exhibition of 
such phenomena. When they are made by friction 
to exhibit those appearances, they are said to be elec- 
trified or electrically excited, and the power of attrac- 
tion which they then exhibit over contiguous light 
bodies is denominated electrical attraction. 

But this is not the only power manifested, or the 
only influence exerted, by this agent over bodies or 
in conjunction with their own properties. There is a 
repulsive as well as an attractive force. This attraction 
and repulsion depend, as will be seen, upon the differ- 
ent electrical states of different bodies. 

For illustration, rub a glass tube : it becomes elec- 
trically excited. Hold it over little bits of paper: 
they are attracted towards it from some distance, and 
with considerable force. But you perceive that the 
moment they come in contact they receive a portion 
of the electricity which attracted them, and are imme- 
diately repelled. Dropping, however, upon some 
other substance, they impart to that substance a por- 
tion of the electricity which they received from the 
glass, and are again attracted towards it, though with 
less force than before, because it is less excited than 
before, having in the first contact lost a portion of its 
superabundant electricity. This alternate attraction 
and repulsion continues, though more and more 
feebly, until the excited substance has lost entirely its 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 45 

electric charge, and has returned to its natural state. 
It then exhibits no attractive powers whatever. Con- 
tiguous light bodies, however light and easily moved, 
remain perfectly unaffected and quiescent at its 
approach. 

Another piece of apparatus, by which attraction 
and repulsion are still more forciby and amusingly 
illustrated, is what is called the apparatus for the 
dancing-figures, by which pieces of paper, or images 
cut from pasteboard, or the pith of elder, are made to 
dance between two plates by the action and reaction 
of positive and negative electricities. 

How wonderful the agency here exhibited ! Who 
does not look with astonishment upon the mock crea- 
tive and life-giving energy which electricity displays ? 
Had some chemist made an exhibition like this in 
the dark ages, without explanation, or even in the 
days of Salem witchcraft, it would haveVung through- 
out the country that he had made a league with the 
evil one, and he would, as a compensation for his 
wisdom and wit, have stood a pretty good chance to 
get a roasting for a wizard. There is a case on record 
directly in point. John Faust, an ingenious German, 
by the invention of types was enabled, during the 
dark ages, not only to publish books much faster, but 
also much clicapcr than before. This newly-discov- 
ered art he kept secret for a time, and hence originated 
the nursery legend of Dr, Faustus and tlic Devil, in 
which he is represented as calling to his aid unlaw- 
fully the spirit of darkness. 

There are many substances — all the metals in par- 
ticular — which do not seem to be capable of being 



46 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

electrically excited by friction. The reason, how- 
ever, is obvious. They give a free passage over their 
surface to the electricity as it is excited, and it is in- 
stantly dissipated without being accumulated in any 
perceptible quantity. 

These are denominated non-electrics, from the fact 
that they are not capable of being excited like glass 
and the resins. They are also called conductors, 
from the fact that they readily transmit the subtle 
agent without accumulation upon their surface. But 
it is only because they are good conductors that they 
happen to be non-electrics. Let them be insulated — 
that is, let them be placed upon some electric or non- 
conductor, such as glass or gum-lac, and they imme- 
diately become electrics by friction, or by the com- 
munication of the positive charge from an electric 
machine, and exhibit the same phenomena as glass, 
sealing-wax, or any other excited electric. The rea-' 
son, then, why some substances are electrics and some 
non-electrics, is because some substances seem to 
have a greater power of affinity to retain what is 
collected upon their surface than others. 

The body of a living person, for instance, is one of 
the best conductors of electricity, or non-electrics, 
and yet it can be made a most perfect electric by in- 
sulation. 

Our observations thus far, aided by our experiments, 
have been the means of ascertaining these three facts : 

I St. Bodies electrically excited attract bodies unexcited. 

2d. Two bodies electrically excited, as when one ex- 
cited body has imparted a portion of its electricity to an 
imexcited body, mutually repel each other. And 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 4/ 

3d. Two bodies in their natitral state have no percept- 
ible influence 2ipon each other^ but are perfectly quiescent. 

It follows, then, as a matter of course, that these 
three facts lay the foundation for three distinct prop- 
ositions: 

1st. Opposite electrical states attract. 

2d. Similar electrical states repel. And 

3d. When bodies are in their natural state ^ they are irt 
a perfect equilibrium or a balance^ exerting neither an 
attractive nor a repulsive influence. 

The question here naturally suggests itself, What 
are those two opposite electrical states spoken of in 
the first proposition? Are they two distinct electrical 
fluids, or only one ? I here use the term fluids, not 
because I consider it an appropriate term, for I cannot 
conceive that the word fluidity, in its general accepta- 
tion, conveys a correct idea of the movement of elec- 
•tricity, but I use it simply in accommodation to the 
inappropriate phraseology of those standard works, 
from the theories of which I am obliged to dissent. 
Are the opposite electrical states, I say, then, two 
distinct fluids, speaking in the language of the books, 
or only one ? Eminent philosophers have been 
divided upon this point. While Du Fay, Symmer, 
Coulomb, Turner, Thompson and others believed that 
there are two, with opposite inherent natures, Dr. 
Franklin, Epinus, and Cavendish, with some modifica- 
tion of each other's views, maintained as positively 
that there is but one. 

I will first state briefly the peculiar views of these 
two classes of celebrated opponents, examine very 
minutely their arguments, show how lar I agree with 



48 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

them, wl^erein I differ, and the reasons which compel 
me to differ. My object, in thus minutely investiga- 
ting those two theories, a^d in attempting to ascertain 
the truth in the case, is to lay broadly and permanently, 
upon the immovable and imperishable basis of fact 
and argument, the foundation of that system of phi- 
losophy, the superstructure of which will be built up 
in future lectures. An error, or a doubt, or an uncer- 
tainty here will be of serious detriment throughout 
the whole series, for my theory must stand or fall by 
the stability or instability of the foundation which 
I here lay. 

The theorists who maintained the existence of two 
fluids gave their supposed opposite electricities the 
names of vitreous and resijtous. They called the one 
vitreous because developed, as they supposed, in glass, 
the word being derived from a Latin term which de- 
notes glass ; and the other resinous, because devel- 
oped, as they supposed, in sealing-wax, gum-lac and 
the other resins, and those two were supposed by them 
to possess properties entirely and inherently different 
from each other, each attractive to its opposite, and 
repellent to itself Upon this hypothesis they 
attempted to explain the reason why an excited body 
attracts an unexcited body, and why like amounts of 
like electricities, either vitreous or resinous, mutually 
repel each other. 

But, as I shall be under the necessity, with my 
views of the subject, to differ entirely from their hypo- 
thesis, I will let them first speak in full for themselves, 
and then endeavor to show wherein that hypothesis 
clashes with fact. And that there may be no injustice 



^COMMON ELECTRICITY. 49 

done to those theorists, I will quote the language of 
one of their most learned and eminent champions. Dr. 
Turner, in his " Elements of Chemistry," on pages 72 
and 73 thus speaks : 

" On comparing the electric properties manifested 
by glass and sealing-wax when both are rubbed by a 
woollen or silk cloth, they will be found essentially 
different; and hence it is inferred that there are two 
kinds or states of electricity — one termed vitreous, 
because developed on glass, and the other resinous 
electricity, from being first noticed on resinous sub- 
stances. These two kinds of electricity, one or 
other of which is possessed by every electrified sub- 
stance, are also termed positive and negative, the terms 
vitreous and positive being used synonymously, as are 
resinous and negative. The mode of distinguishing 
between positive and negative electricity is founded 
on the circumstance, that if two electrified substances 
are both positive or both negative, they are invariably 
disposed to recede from each other, that is, to exhibit 
electric repulsion ; but if one be positive, and the other 
negative, their mutual action is as constantly attractive. 
The end of a silk thread, after contact with an electri- 
fied stick of sealing-wax, is repelled by the wax, be- 
cause both are in the same electric state ; but if a dr>% 
warm wineglass be rubbed with cloth or silk, and 
then presented to the thread, attraction will ensue. A 
silk thread, in a known electric state, thus indicates 
the kind of electricity possessed by other substances: 
a convenient mode of doing this is to draw a thread 
of white silk rapidly through a fold of coarse brown 
5 D 



50 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

paper previously warmed, by which means its whole 
length will be rendered positive. 

" When two substances are rubbed together so as to 
electrify one of them, the other, if in a state to retain 
electricity, will be excited also, one being always neg- 
ative and the other positive. It is easy to be satisfied 
of this by very simple experiments. Rub a stick of 
sealing-wax on warm, coarse brown paper, and the 
paper will be found to repel a positively excited thread 
of silk, while the wax will attract it. If a warm wine- 
glass be rubbed on the brown paper, the glass will be 
positive, as shown by its repelling the positive thread, 
while the same thread will be attracted by the nega- 
tive paper. Friction of sealing-wax on a silk ribbon 
renders tTie ribbon positive, but with glass the ribbon 
is negative. If two silk ribbons, one white and the 
other black, be made quite warm, placed in contact, 
and then be drawn quickly through the closed fingers, 
they will be found, on separation, to be highly attrac- 
tive to each other, the white being positive, and the 
black negative. The back of a cat is positive to all 
substances v/ith which it has been tried, and smooth 
glass is positive to all except the back of a cat. Seal- 
ing-wax is negative to all the substances just enumer- 
ated, but becomes positive by friction with most of 
the metals. The reader will perceive from these facts 
that the same substance may acquire both kinds of 
electricity, becoming positive by friction with one 

body, and negative with another This theory, 

the fundamental facts of which were supplied partly 
by Du Fay, and partly by Symmer, is founded on the 
assumed existence of two electric fluids, which Du 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 5 1 

Fay distinguished by the terms vitreous and resinous 
electricity. In order to account for electric phenom- 
ena by this supposition, the two fluids are assumed 
to possess the following properties : They are both 
equally subtle and elastic, universally diffused, and, 
therefore, present in all bodies, possessed of the most 
perfect fluidity, each highly repulsive to its own parti- 
cles, and as highly attractive to those of the opposite 
kind ; these attractive and repulsive forces being ex- 
actly equal at the same distance, and both varying in- 
versely as the squares of the distance vary. Electric 
quiescence is ascribed to these fluids being combined 
and neutralized with each other ; and electric excita- 
tion is the consequence of either fluid being in excess. 
Their combination is destroyed by several causes, of 
which friction is one. The application of these prin- 
ciples is as follows : Two unexcited contiguous 
bodies, A and B, are electrically indifferent to each 
other: for, though each electricity in A repels the 
electricity of the same name in B, attraction to the 
same extent is exerted between the opposite electric- 
ities, and no change results. If A and B are rubbed 
together, a portion of the combined electricities in 
both is decomposed, and the separated resinous fluid is 
transferred to one of them, suppose to A, and the 
vitreous to B, each being electrified to the same de- 
gree, though oppositely. The free particles of resinous 
electricity in A tend by their repulsion to recede from 
each other, and would quit A altogether, unless their 
passage were impeded by a non-conductor: the at- 
mosphere, if dry, cuts off the retreat, and by its pres- 
sure confines the resinous fluid to the surface o{ A. 



52 A NEW PHIL OSOPH V OF MA TTER. 

The same happens to the vitreous fluid on the surface 
of B. But the opposite electricities fixed on A and 
B exert a strong mutual attraction, and may succeed 
either in forcing their way across the intervening 
stratum of air, or of actually drawing A and B into 
contact. In either case the free electricities reunite, and 
the electric equilibrium is restored. On the contrary, 
if A and B are similarly electrified — that is, possess 
the same kind of free electricity — the effort of the 
electric fluid to escape in opposite directions causes 
the substances themselves to fly asunder, if the repul- 
sive force exceeds their weight, and thus produces 
electric repulsion. 

*' This theory, as commonly stated, takes little or no 
cognizance of any attraction between the electric fluids 
and other material substances. But it would be 
against all analogy to suppose no such influence to 
exist; and indeed the supposition of an attractive 
force acting at insensible distances seems necessary 
to account for the impediment caused by non-con- 
ductors to the free movement of the electric fluids." 

Dr. Franklin, the celebrated electrician of our own 
country, took strong and decided ground against this 
doctrine. For it he substituted the more simple 
theory of one fluid, and attempted to account for all 
the various phenomena of attraction and repulsion by 
the different states, or degrees, or volumes of elec- 
tricity, which he called plus or positive and minus or 
negative. When a body had more than its natural 
share, it was considered to be in a plus or positive 
state, and when it had less than its natural share, it 
was considered minus or negative. Bodies, upon 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 53 

this principle, are positive and negative, relatively, or 
positive and negative absolutely. They are positive 
and negative relatively when they are both plus, but 
when one has a greater amount than the other. They 
are positive and negative absolutely when one has more 
than its natural share, and the other less. But in each 
of those cases there is attraction, though much more 
feeble in the former than in the latter case. Franklin, 
however, found, after mature reflection upon the sub- 
ject, that his theory was attended with one inexpli- 
cable difficulty. His penetrating mind could not 
solve it satisfactorily to himself This difficulty was 
the repulsion of two negatives, which he confessed 
could not be explained upon the plus and minus 
theory, for in this case both would be minus, and 
there would, of course, be an absence of what he con- 
sidered to be the attractive and repulsive principle. 

Epinus, however, a celebrated electrician of St. 
Petersburg, in Russia, undertook to extricate the 
theory of Franklin from this dilemma. He maintained, 
with Franklin, that there is but one fluid, and 
accounted for all the phenomena of attraction and 
repulsion, including the repulsion of two negatives, 
upon the hypothesis that there must be a reciprocal 
affinity or attraction between ponderable and impon- 
derable matter, and that the particles of each must be 
mutually repellent to those of their own kind, and 
mutually attractive to their opposites, and that this 
attraction and repulsion exerts itself in the ratio of 
inverse proportions according to the squares o{ the 
distance. This, it will be seen, lays the basis for three 
distinct propositions : 
5* 



54 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

1st. The particles or ultimate atoms of ponderable 
matter naturally repel each other. 

2d. The particles or component parts of imponder- 
able matter or electricity mutually repel each other. 

3d. The particles or component parts of both pon- 
derable and imponderable matter mutually attract 
their opposites, and that, too, with a force which not 
only varies according to the squares of the distance, 
but also according to the magnitude and density of 
the one, and the volume or degree of the other. 

Now, from this explanation of the difficulty which 
Franklin encountered, I dissent altogether. It destroys 
virtually that ^' vis-iitej^tia'' or inaction, which is an 
essential property of ponderable matter, and gives 
to it attributes which it never possessed. That diffi- 
culty can be explained in a manner more strictly in 
accordance with fact, for if the theory of one electric 
agent, as maintained by Franklin, is correct, his doc- 
trine of plus and minus is also correct : but there are 
certain invariable results, which depend upon the plus 
and minus of bodies, which will fully explain the 
difficulty which he encountered. We must look, not 
to the simple volume, or degree, or amount of accu- 
mulation itself — not to the simple plus and minus, 
but to the organic laws of the ultimate component 
particles of electricity, for the solution of the enigma 
which so puzzled Franklin, which laws, however, 
invariably exhibit their operations through the medium 
of a plus and minus, as Franklin supposed ; for all the 
electrical phenomena depend, after all, upon a plus 
and minus in bodies. 

Owing to the extent of the present lecture, I am 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 55 

obliged to defer to the next the full examination of 
the two opposing theories, which have been stated, 
and shall show wherein I am under the necessity of 
differing from both, by the existence of a formidable 
array of facts, and the arguments which can be legiti- 
mately drawn from them, which facts and arguments, 
in my view, preclude ^ki^ possibility oi \h€\x being cor- 
rect. The theory of two fluids in particular seems to 
me so wide from the truth, and so contrary to known 
and tested laws, that I am somewhat surprised that men 
of such acknowledged talent and intellectual acumen, 
as they confessedly are who advocate them, should 
have given them credence or currency. It must, we be- 
lieve, in some cases, have been from the fact that they 
admitted, without examination^ upon the mere author- 
ity of great names, what they should have thoroughly 
examined for themselves, unbiased by preconceived 
opinions, and promptly rejected, if they found the 
same unsubstantiated by fact. It is unsafe either to 
regard great names as infallible, or to indulge in fan- 
ciful philosophical speculations which have no solid 
and imperishable basis in the stern and sober reality 
of things. Whether that stern and sober reality has 
an existence or not, in any given case, can be ascer- 
tained, in most instances, by experiment. In combat- 
ing those errors in theory, we shall draw all our con- 
clusions from the facts which experiment furnishes. 



LECTURE III. 

COMMON ELECTRICITY.— Continued. 

AS announced in the former lecture, the present 
will partake largely of a controversial character. 
Yet we differ with those authors, from whose opinions 
we shall dissent, only because the facts which have 
been ascertained by ourselves and by others, in the 
careful observations of the laboratory,- compel us to 
differ. And while we thus differ, we entertain the 
highest respect for the talents and researches of those 
eminent scholars. They have thrown great light upon 
many abstruse and difficult subjects, and we are free 
and happy to acknowledge the benefit and assistance 
which we have received from their works. 

It is not at all wonderful that there should be 
diverse and clashing opinions upon the subject of 
electricity and its various phenomena and influences, 
since it is an agent so extremely subtle, and since it 
must be acknowledged that it is not easy to detect, in 
many instances, the modus operandi of its doings, or 
the primary cause of some of the effects it exhibits. 
Our arguments and conclusions will, therefore, be 
liable to misapprehension and misinterpretation, unless 
great pains be taken to render them as clear and lucid 
as it is possible for language to make them, and even 
then we do not expect to escape entirely the common 

56 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 5 ^ 

fate of authors, owing to the imperfection of the falli- 
ble medium through which ideas are conveyed from 
one mind to another. That we may, therefore, avoid, 
as much as possible, misapprehension, and that the 
positions to be examined, as well as controverted, 
may be vividly before the mind of the reader, we will 
restate them briefly before proceeding in the dis- 
cussion. 

We shall do it, also, for another important reason. 
The opinions advanced in the following pages will be 
substantiated, or proved baseless and erroneous, as 
we establish or fail to establish our positions. Much, 
therefore, it will be seen, depends upon a thorough 
examination of the opposing and clashing theories of 
one and two electric agents, and upon the full and 
satisfactory establishment of the one, and refutation 
of the other, and, for this reason, we here define the 
precise positions of the combatants, even at the risk 
and expense of being thought somewhat diffuse and 
tautological. 

Du Fay, Symmer, Coulomb, Turner, and Thompson 
promulgated and defended the theory that there are 
two kinds of electricity, or two distinct electrical 
agents — that one, if I can understand them aright, 
resides inherently in one substance, and the other 
inherently in another — that each of those two agents 
is mutually repellent to itself, and mutually attractive 
to its opposite — and that all the phenomena o{ attrac- 
tion and repulsion among bodies are produced by the 
action or agency of these two electricities. 

That it may not be affirmed, by the advocates of 
this theory, that I have misstated their opinions upon 



58 A KE W PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

this point, when their glaring erroneousness and 
absurdity shall have been made to appear, or stand 
out prominently to view, even by their own showing 
and their own self-contradictions , I will give their own 
language. Thompson thus speaks of this subject on 
pages 359 and 360 of his large work on "Heat and 
Electricity : " 

*' If we suspend two small pith-balls, by means of a 
very slender wire, from a stick of sealing-wax, and 
rub the wax with dry woollen cloth, the two balls 
will repel each other. If we suspend another pith- 
ball by a slender wire from a stick of sealing-wax, 
and rub it also with a dry woollen cloth, this pith- 
ball, if brought close to the two former, will also be 
repelled by them. If we suspend the pith-balls by 
slender wires from dry glass tubes, and rub the tubes 
with dry woollen cloth, the result will be the same — 
all the pith-balls will repel each other. 

" But if we suspend a small pith-ball by a small 
wire from a glass tube, and another, in a similar man- 
ner, from a stick of sealing-wax, and make the two 
balls approach, after having rubbed the glass tube 
and the stick of sealing-wax, the pith-balls, instead 
of repelling, will attract each other." 

Now these facts, which Thompson records as having 
been proven by experiment, we pretend not to deny. 
They are doubtless true. But we deny, altogether, 
the conclusions which he draws from these, as his 
data or premises. He thus reasons : 

" Hence it is obvious that the electricity excited in 
glass " [now mark this] " is different from that excited 
in sealing-wax, since bodies having the electricity of 



COMMON EL EC TRICIT V. 59 

^lass attract those having the electricity of sealing- 
wax, while bodies having each, either the electricity 
of glass or sealing-wax, repel each other." 

Now it has been affirmed, by some of the advocates 
of the theory of two agents, that Thompson did not 
say in this passage, or intend to say, that glass pro- 
duces only one kind, and sealing-wax only the other. 
But if he does not, by the quotation already made, 
advance such an opinion, I must confess myself 
utterly incapable of understanding his language. My 
intellectual acumen happens not to be sharp enough, 
if that be the case, to perceive his meaning. Let us 
examine and dissect the passage a little, for our object 
is to get at the facts in the case, and elicit truth, and 
sift it from error. Thompson expressly affirms, with- 
out any qualification, that the electricity of glass is 
different from that of sealing-wax. He does not inti- 
mate that he considers it to contain any other than 
that which he says is different. The assumption that 
he does, for the sake of getting him out of a dilemma, 
is supplying, by an active imagination, what he has 
not seen fit even to Jiint at in any of his labored works. 
Before showing what that dilemma is, from which his 
apologists would extricate his theory — before placing 
in striking contrast his palpable self-contradictions, 
and making him refute himself, scholar as he certainly 
is — I will quote from Turner, another of the most 
able defenders of the theory we are opposing, to show 
that Thompson stands not alone in the ad\'ocac\- <>i 
such sentiments. 

He says, on page Jl of his Choniistr\', as quoted in 
a former lecture, " On comparing the electric properties 



6o A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

manifested by glass and sealing-wax, when both are 
rubbed by a woollen or silk cloth, they will be found 
essentially different, and hence it is inferred that there 
are two kinds or states of electricity, one termed 
vitreous'' — and why? Mark the answer of Turner 
— ''Because developed in glass; and the other resin- 
ous'' — and why? — "Because first noticed in resinous 
substances." Now, is there the slightest intimation, 
in this statement of the theory, that glass ever develops 
but one kind, or resinous substances either? Does 
he not rather expressly affirm that they are essentially 
different, and if one thing be essentially different from 
another, what logician will insinuate that they are 
both alike ? 

Now then for the self-contradictions of the staunch- 
est and most learned advocate of this palpable error 
in theory. Let Mr. Thompson be arrayed against 
Mr. Thompson, and let him be refuted by his own 
statement of facts. There can be no /"^zr^r system of 
polemic warfare. 

On page 361 of Thompson, he has the following 
language : ** If we rub dry woollen cloth against 
smooth glass, it acquires negative or resinous elec- 
tricity, while the glass becomes positively electrified. 
But if we rub woollen cloth against rough glass, it 
acquires positive electricity, while the glass is charged 
with negative or resinous electricity." 

Now in this quotation Thompson certainly contra- 
dicts his assertions in other parts of his work, if I am 
able to decipher the meaning of an author. He affirms, 
in the quotation already dissected and analyzed, that 
" the electricity of glass is different from that of sealing- 



COMMON ELECTRICITY, 6l 

wax, and in the facts last quoted he proves that, with 
the same materials and with the same rubber, both 
the electricities are developed in glass, and that at 
least one of its electricities, if it have two, is the same 
as in sealing-wax, instead of being " essentially differ- 
ent'^ as elsewhere asserted. 

This palpable self-co7ttradiction arises from the fact 
that he has undertaken to defend the fanciful specu- 
lations of an active imagination, which, as a general 
thing, passed in his day too much for current truth. 

But some one may say that, although a palpable 
contradiction has been detected, yet that should not 
impair confidence in the doctrine of two agents. 
Such a one may affirm that, by rubbing glass, one kind 
of electricity may be drawn from it, and that by rub- 
bing, with the same rubber, glass of another kind of 
surface, another kind of electricity may be developed. 
Although the bare proposition, to my mind, seems 
most superlatively illogical and ridiculous, yet I will 
examine it, because it seems to be seriously and hon- 
estly believed by its advocates. If it be maintained 
that there are two electric agents or fluids, as they 
are called, and that they have an attraction for each 
other, and a repulsion for themselves, they must, 
according to the facts which Mr. Thompson himself 
has recorded, both reside in glass. Now, if that be 
the case, and if they both, as asserted, have a mutual 
attraction for each other, why should friction call the 
positive current out of smooth glass and leave the 
negative, or why should it call the negative current 
out of rough glass and leave the positive? It may 
be said by some one, perhaps, that it docs call both 
6 



62 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER, 

out, but that the one current runs to the surface of 
the woollen rubber, while the other accumulates upon 
the surface of the glass. But why should they do 
this? If there be two currents of the kind we are 
examining — if they have a mutual attraction for each 
other, and if friction calls forth both of them at the 
same time, why should they not, by the force of that 
attraction, both accumulate upon the same surface ? 
And to show still further the mere fanciful nature of 
this theory, when brought to the test of fact and of 
reason, why should a dry woollen rubber accumulate 
upon itself negative electricity when rubbed against 
sjnooth glass, and positive electricity when rubbed 
against rough glass ? and why should the smooth 
glass acquire positive and the rough negative at the 
same time? Not one of these questions can be 
answered satisfactorily upon the supposition of two 
fluids. We have to resort to the theory of one fluid 
to account for these things rationally, though not to 
the theory of one fluid exactly as taught in the 
books. Positive and negative do not depend upon 
the influence of two electricities inherently different, 
but upon the different degrees of the accumulation of 
a single current. If a substance, by any cause, acquire 
more than a certain amount, so as to make it plus, 
with regard to what may be called its natural share, 
it is positive; but if it have less than a certain amount, 
so as to make it minus, it is negative, and so positive 
and negative relate to degree or quantity, and to 
degree or quantity alone. Upon this hypothesis, the 
reason why, in the facts quoted from Thompson, the 
woollen became positive in one case, and the glass 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 63 

negative, and why, in the other case, the woollen 
became negative and the glass positive, was simply 
because the roughest of two substances, when rubbed 
together, if both be non-conductors, will impart its 
electricity to the other, and make that plus or positive, 
while it becomes minus or negative, and just to the 
extent that the one is positive, to the same extent is 
the other negative ; so that the one invariably accu- 
mulates precisely what the other loses. This law is 
universal. If one substance loses its electricity, just in 
that proportion precisely does the other accumulate it. 
Not an iota is created by friction. Its quiet is only 
disturbed ; and if it accumulates, it is evident that the 
substance from which it is accumulated is so far minus. 
This accounts rationally, and in accordance with 
that simplicity and economy which appear throughout 
nature, for all the phenomena of positive and negative 
electricity. It is simply accumulation and proportional 
abstraction. But the reason why two positives repel 
a positive and negative, and a negative and positive 
attract, and why two negatives repel, is much more 
abstruse. It has, for a long time, puzzled philosophers. 
Franklin, clear-headed as he was, found himself in a 
dilemma, and confessed it, when endeavoring to solve 
the mystery of the repulsion of two negatives. Nor 
is the attempt of L^pinus to extricate him from the 
difficulty entirely satisfactory, although I far prefer it 
to the irrational and palpable contradictions which 
cluster thickly around the theory of two electric agents. 
The opinions of Franklin, reconciled by Epinus, are 
based upon those three propositions which I stated in 
a former lecture : 



64 A NE W PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

1st. Ponderable matter repels its own particles; 

2d. Imponderable matter repels its own particles. 

3d. They have a mutual attraction for each other. 

But this again might seem to convey the idea that 
ponderable matter, by its attraction, exhibits inherent 
activity, which is contrary to fact, for ponderable 
matter of itself I hold to be perfectly inert. We must 
examine further, then, to find a philosophical solution 
for the enigma. Such a solution I think I have found. 
It is nowhere even hinted at in the books. But be- 
cause it is not, let no one suppose that I am about to 
advance a mere fanciful hypothesis, based on no solid 
foundation of fact. My solution of the difficulty will 
be derived from a law of electricity, which, although 
it seems to have escaped the attention of chemists, can 
nevertheless be demonstrated to exist as easily and 
as perfectly as any problem in Euclid can be demon- 
strated. It is this : every ultimate particle of elec- 
tricity has opposite polarities ; that is, each end of 
each individual particle has a different property — like 
ends or polarities repel, and unlike ends or polarities 
attract. This I intend to prove conclusively by the 
aid of that immutable truth, that the laws of a whole 
are the laws of its parts, and by the operation of the 
rule so proven I intend to show that all the phenom- 
ena of attraction and repulsion among both atoms 
and planets can be rationally accounted for. Let us 
apply the immutable and infallible rule, that the laws 
of the whole are the laws of its parts, and see whether 
it will sustain the opinion we have hazarded, and for 
which we derive no support from the books. 

Electricity and galvanism are, at the present day, 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 65 

generally conceded to be the same agent. There is 
no dispute about that. Now, if you pass a current of 
galvanism around soft iron, bent into the form of a 
horse-shoe, and wound, spirally, with insulated copper 
wire, you make the iron magnetic, and the two ends 
have different polarities. By different polarities I 
mean that what one end will attract, the other will 
repel, or the one is negative, and the other is positive. 
But by changing the poles of the battery, and passing 
the current of electricity in a different direction around 
the spiral wire, you change the polarity of the iron, 
and make the end that was positive, negative, and the 
end that was negative, positive, which can be shown 
by experiments in electro-magnetism. .So, then, pos- 
itive and negative, in this case, depend upon the 
direction in which the current runs, for the current 
runs inzvard at one end, and outward at the other. 
The end where the current is inward is akvays neg- 
ative, and that where it is outward is ahvays positive. 
And why is this invariably so ? There must be a 
reason for this phenomena. Its solution is readily 
found in the admirable rule, that the laivs of the ivhole 
are the laivs of its parts. If a current of electricity, 
running in a certain direction, makes one end of a 
bar of iron positive, and the other negative, each in- 
dividual ultimate particle of that current must have an 
agency in producing sucli a result, and, therefore, 
each individual particle must have a positive and 
negative end, the positive end always leading, and the 
negative, of course, always following. We infer this 
from the fact that the laws of the whole arc the laws 
of its parts, or the laws of its parts arc the laws of the 
6^^ E 



66 A NE W PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

v/hole ; for it would be utterly impossible that the 
whole of a thing should have a quality the opposite of 
the parts of which it is composed. 

To make our position still more impregnable by 
fact and argument, let us examine further. If you 
pass the galvanic current around steel spirally, in the 
same way as it is passed around soft iron, you make it 
permanently magnetic. The end where the current 
is inward is negative^ but the end where it is outward 
is positive. So it will remain for years. Now you 
may cut up that bar of steel, which is thus made mag- 
netic, into ten thousand pieces, and each piece will 
have a positive and negative end, and the positive 
and negative polarities of the pieces will be arranged 
in the same direction as in the whole. What, then, 
is the unavoidable and logical inference ? Why, that 
each idtimate particle of the electricity that made it mag- 
netic and kept it magnetic has opposite polarities, as 
well as the whole current; because the polarities 
of the whole are, most assuredly, made up of the 
properties of its parts. A mere thimbleful of the 
atmosphere, for instance, contains its relative propor- 
tions of oxygen and nitrogen, as well as the whole 
mass. A drop of water contains its relative propor- 
tions of oxygen and hydrogen, as well as the ocean, 
and so with everything else. Further confirmation, 
if confirmation it needs, will be given to this opinion 
when we come to the subject oi polarized light. 

Having, by fact and by argument, attempted to 
prove that each end of the ultimate particles of elec- 
tricity has opposite polarities, that the positive end is 
always presented in the outward current, and the 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 6/ 

negative end, of course, in the inward current, we will 
now apply this theory to the explanation of the phe- 
nomena of attraction and repulsion. But first, to show 
that the facts are true which we have stated, we can 
prove them by an experiment with two magnets. 

If, for illustration, two steel magnets, with like 
powers, be dipped into iron filings until they have 
accumulated as large an amount as they can retain 
upon their poles, and the opposite poles of each be 
then presented within a short distance of each other, 
the filings will spin out, and fill up the space between 
them, and exhibit an oily, ropy appearance. But if 
like poles be presented, the filings will be blown back, 
as it were, and stand out like hair around the points 
of the magnet. This shows that there is attraction in 
the one case, and repulsion in the other. 

Now, then, for an explanation of the attractions and 
repulsions of common electricity by this theory. A 
body which is charged plus or positive has an eman- 
ation or an outward current. Such a body will attract 
a body charged minus or negative. And why ? Be- 
cause, as we have shown by the magnets, the outward 
current of the body charged plus presents its positive 
end. But a body in a minus state has an inward cur- 
rent of electricity, which it attracts from contiguous 
substances. Of course the negative end of the ulti- 
mate particles of this inward current is presented. 
And what is the consequence ? Why, two bodies, 
the one having an outward, and the other an inward 
current, present opposite polarities to each other, and 
are attracted from the operation o{ the immutable 
law that opposite polarities attract. 



68 A NEW PHIL OSOPH V OF MA TTER. 

We now come to the solution of that difficulty 
which perplexed Dr. Franklin so much — the repul- 
sion of two negatives. Before the application of this 
rule the difficulty vanishes at one. When two bodies 
are minus, or have less than their natural share, the 
current of electricity is inward into both. Now if, 
while the two currents are inward, the bodies in a 
minus state be brought near each other, they are 
repelled, because both currents being inward, the 
negative ends of the ultimate particles of each 
current are presented to each other, and they are 
repelled upon the principle that like polarities repel 
each other. Thus are all attraction and repulsion 
among material bodies, and, of course, all motion, 
produced by the agency of electricity alone, without 
the intervention or co-operation of inert matter — so 
that the difficulty which Dr. Franklin encountered 
in his theory of plus and minus is obviated without 
the aid of the unphilosophical assumption of Epinus 
and Cavendish, that matter has the property of repel- 
ling its own particles. 

But an objection may possibly arise in the mind of 
some, respecting the repulsion of two negatives, which 
I will state in the form of a question, and then answer 
it. If the current of electricity be inward into two 
bodies, why should not the force of the currents set- 
ting in bring two bodies together? Such a question 
would be asked by an objector, who did not under- 
stand fully the relative agency of electricity over inert 
matter. Motion is never produced in ponderable 
matter by the mere force of moving currents of elec- 
tricity. If this was the case, our earth would have 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 69 

been Instantaneously battered to atoms by the light 
which first struck it from the sun. The force of the 
currents is not a moving cause at all. So subtle are 
they, that they make no impression of this sort upon 
matter. But their attractions and repulsions all de- 
pend upon an organic law of the ultimate particles — 
upon polarity, and upon that alone. 

There are several other facts illustrative of this 
law. The upper end of a lightning-rod, for instance, 
is negative, while the lower end is positive. And 
why? Because the current is towards the earth, and 
is, therefore, inward at the top and outward at the 
bottom. Unless this were the case, it would not 
have a tendency to draw electricity from the clouds, 
but repel it. 

The shovel, tongs, poker or any other metallic rod 
or substance which has stood for some time in an up- 
right position — whether in the chimney-corner or in 
any other upright position — whether within or with- 
out the house — imbibe electric properties, and their 
two extremities always exhibit opposite polarities. 
This is demonstrated by the fact, that one end will 
draw the north point of the needle of the compass, 
while the other end will drive it. 

As opposite polarities always attract, we find by 
this experiment, that the top of such a metallic rod is 
negative, because it attracts the positive end of the 
needle, and the bottom positive, because it repels the 
north point of the needle, upon the principle that like 
polarities repel. 

The longer a metallic rod remains in an upright 
position, the stronger does its electric, or magnetic, 



70 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

properties become, until it has become as completely- 
saturated with the wondrous agent, as it can be. Now 
the question naturally suggests itself, as to the ex- 
citing cause of this invariable electric or magnetic 
property. Why is the top of a metallic bar or rod, 
which has stood in an upright position for a long 
time, always negative, and its bottom always positive ? 
or, in other words, why is the stream of electric influ- 
ence always imvard at the top, and outward at the 
bottom? Whence does it come? From the sun, 
undoubtedly, in the passage of the rays of that elec- 
trifying agent to the earth, as we shall show more 
fully when we come to the subject of light. If any 
chemist can account for the phenomena more philo- 
sophically, we should be pleased to have his solution 
of the problem. 

Having fully and minutely examined the theory of 
one and two fluids, and described what we consider 
to be the true and only true cause of all attractions 
and repulsions in nature, we must nov/, in order to 
render a treatise upon this subject complete, just glance 
at some of the principal benefits, which have been 
conferred upon the World by the investigations of 
electricians, which investigations were some of them 
made at a great personal risk, as will appear in the 
sequel. 

The Leyden jar is an article of electric apparatus, 
which was inventd by Cunaeus, Muschenbrceck, and 
Allamand, at a very early period of electrical science. 
But, as it is in common use, in all experiments illus- 
trative of this subject, and as it is fully described in 
the text-books, we shall just pass with a mere allusion 
to it. 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 7 1 

After its discovery, and the exhibition of the pow- 
erful effects of electrical batteries, philosophers could 
not avoid perceiving the analogy which evidently 
exists between electricity and lightning. This led to 
intense investigations of the subtle phenomenon of 
the storm-cloud. Our sagacious Dr. Franklin led the 
way. Having discovered that pointed rods of the 
various metals have the power of discharging elec- 
tricity, when presented at some distance from the 
knob of the Leyden jar, the thought occurred to his 
mind that atmospherical electricity might, by means 
of that discovery, be made sensible. This thought was 
communicated to M. D'Abilard, of France, and some 
other electricians of Europe, with the request that 
they would test the correctness of his opinions by 
some experiment, as their facilities for procuring suit- 
able apparatus were superior to his own. Following 
his suggestion, observations were eagerly made by 
several, and his opinions were proven to be well 
founded. 

In the meantime, however, and before he had 
received any account of the experiments made in 
Europe, it occurred to Franklin that, by means of a 
common kite, he could have access to the floating 
reservoirs of thunder. Having, therefore, prepared 
one with a large silk handkerchief, having two cross- 
sticks, and with no confidant but his son, for fear of 
the ridicule which would attend an unsuccessful ex- 
periment, he walked out into a secluded field at the 
approach of the first thunder-storm, and with the help 
of his son, raised it into the atmosphere. I Ic waited 
some time with anxious and breathless expectation. 



72 A NE W PHIL OSOPH Y OF MA TTER, 

One well-charged cloud had passed, and no effect 
upon his kite was perceptible. Just, however, as he 
began to despair of success, he noticed that some of 
the loose threads around his hempen cord, which 
had, by this time, become a better conductor than at 
first, owing to the moisture accumulated upon it, 
would stand out, and apparently avoid each other. 
Encouraged by this favorable appearance, he pre- 
sented, though at the risk of his life, his knuckle to 
the key, which he had tied to the end of the cord, 
and received a strong spark, attended with a loud 
snap. Others more brilliant still and in quick succes- 
sion followed, and thus was fully proven by Franklin, 
the identity of electricity, and the lightning of the 
clouds. 

This experiment was unconsciously attended with 
extreme danger, as was subsequently proven in the 
fate of the amiable, talented, and lamented Professor 
Richman, of St, Petersburg. The circumstances of 
his untimely end are thus detailed by Thompson, in 
his large work on " Heat and Electricity," on pages 
435-6: 

" He had provided himself with an instrument, 
which he called an electrical gnomon, the use of 
which was to measure the strength of electricity. It 
consisted of a rod of metal, terminating in a small 
glass vessel, into which he had (for what reason does 
not appear) put some brass filings. At the end of 
this rod a thread was fastened, which hung down by 
the side of the rod when it was not electrified, but 
when it was, it avoided the rod, and stood at a distance 
from it, making an angle at the place where it was 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 73 

fastened. To measure this angle, he had the arch of 
a quadrant fastened to the bottom of the iron rod. 

" He was observing the effect of the electricity of 
the clouds, at the approach of a thunder-storm, upon 
his gnomon, and of course standing with his head 
inclined towards it, accompanied by M. Solokow (an 
engraver, whom he frequently took with him to be a 
joint observer of his electrical experiments, in order 
to represent them the better in his figures), when this 
gentleman, who was standing close to his elbow, 
observed a globe of blue fire, as he called it, as big as 
his fist, jump from the rod of the gnomon towards 
the head of the Professor, which, at that instant, was 
about a foot distant from the rod. This flash killed 
M. Richman ; but M. Solokow could give no account 
of the particular manner in which he was immediately 
affected by it. For at the same time that the Professor 
was struck, there arose a sort of steam, or vapor, 
which entirely benumbed him, and made him sink 
down upon the ground ; so that he could not remem- 
ber even to have heard the clap of thunder, which 
was very loud, 

" The globe of fire was attended with a report as 
loud as that of a pistol. A wire which brought the 
electricity to the metal rod was broken to pieces, and 
its fragments thrown upon M. Solokow's clothes. 
Half of the glass vessel in which the rod of the 
gnomon stood was broken off, and the filings of metal 
that were in it were thrown about the room. The 
door-case of the room was split through, the door 
torn off, and thrown into the room. The shoe oi the 
Professor's left foot was burst open, and there was a 
7 



74 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

blue mark on his foot at that place — from which it 
was concluded that the electricity had entered by the 
head, where there were evident marks of injury, and 
made its way out again by the left foot." 

I cannot resist the inclination to make another 
quotation here from the same work, respecting the 
improvement made about this time, and which ren- 
dered experiments with the kite much more safe and 
satisfactory than before : 

" M. de Romas made the experiment with the kite 
in a more perfect manner than the first attempt of Dr. 
Franklin. He twisted a fine iron wire into the cord 
of the kite. To prevent the observer from being ex- 
posed to danger, the lower extremity of the string 
terminated in a silk cord, eight or ten feet in length, 
by means of which the kite with its string was insu- 
lated. Instead of drawing sparks with the finger, 
which makes the observer himself receive the charge, 
he received them by means of a metallic conductor, 
connected with the ground by a chain, which he held 
in his hand by means of an insulating glass handle, so 
that it resembled our common discharger. Romas 
describes the sparks given out from the string to this 
discharger during a thunder-storm, in a letter to the 
Abbe Nollet, in very glowing language. ' Conceive,' 
says he, * plates of flame, nine or ten feet long, and an 
inch thick, which make as much noise as a pistol. 
In less than an hour I had certainly thirty plates of 
this size, without reckoning a thousand others of 
seven feet, and below that. But what gave me the 
greatest satisfaction in this new spectacle was, that 
the greatest of these plates were spontaneous, and 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 75 

that, notwithstanding the abundance of the fire which 
they contained, they fell always on the nearest con- 
ductor. This constancy gave me so much security 
that I was not afraid to draw sparks by means of my 
conductor, even when the thunder-storm was at its 
height, although the glass handle of that instrument 
was only tv/o feet in length. I conducted where I 
pleased, without feeling in my hand the smallest com- 
motion, sparks of fire six or seven feet long, with the 
same facility as those whose length did not exceed 
seven or eight inches.' " 

From these successful experiments with the kite, 
the practical benefit of lightning-rods, for the protec- 
tion of edifices exposed to the destruction of the 
scathing element, was suggested to the active mind 
of Franklin, who seemed to be always studying to 
turn science to a profitable account These were 
made by elevating above the highest dome, or spire, 
or the chimney of a dwelling, a rod with one or more 
sharp points, to abstract the fluid from the surrounding 
atmosphere, in most cases silently. Down the sides 
of the edifice these were conducted, and passed into 
the ground to a considerable depth, being fastened to 
the walls of the building by iron staples driven into 
them, with some non-conducting substance between 
them and the rod, to prevent the passage of a bolt 
into the wall where the staples entered when the rod 
happened to be struck by a perceptible flash. 

Great improvements have been made since the 
invention of Franklin, both in the construction of 
lightning-rods and in the method of putting them up. 
By such improvements, they have become nuich 



'j6 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

better protectors. They are now made, in some parts 
of our country, out of square nail-rods, with bearded 
corners; each joint is made with a ring at one end, 
and a shank at the other, turned outward about two 
inches, at right angles with the rod, and pointed, 
which, when put up, is turned outward from the 
building and inserted in the ring. Thus each joint, 
six or eight feet long, has a ring at one end, and a 
shank at the other, which, when connected together, 
constitute the upright rod. In addition, a square 
nail-rod is sometimes extended the full length of the 
ridge-pole, with perpendicular spikes, having sharp 
points, about six inches long, attached to it at an 
interval of every two or three feet, with branches 
attached to the same, extending above one or more 
of the chimneys, if the building be a house, or above 
the spire, if it be a church, and these, so constructed, 
are connected with two upright rods, erected in the 
manner before described, at each end of the house or 
edifice, and passing into the ground. Such rods are 
an ample protection against any thunder-bolt, whether 
its passage be perpendicular or horizontal. 

It might seem appropriate, before closing this lecture 
upon Common Electricity, that I should describe the 
various causes of electrical excitement, show the 
chemical effects of this powerful and all-pervading 
agent, and give a solution for the phenomena of 
winds and storms. But the two former will be re- 
served for the lectures upon Galvanism, and the latter 
for those upon Caloric. 

I shall, therefore, close with the request that the 
' reader would keep distinctly in view the laws by 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 7/ 

which common electricity is governed ; for, by argu- 
ments and illustrations, based upon those simple and 
uniform laws, I expect to establish, beyond contro- 
versy or reasonable cavil, the positions which I shall 
take in discussing the more abstruse and difficult 
topics of some of the following lectures. Yes, I shall 
depend upon those laws to prove that electricity, and 
electricity alone, is the prime natural cause of all 
chemical changes in creation, and all motion among 
either atoms, or spheres, or constellations of spheres. 
I thus call the particular attention of the reader to 
those laws of electricity, because it will doubtless be 
the case that many will hesitate to give the theory 
credence, and persist in that hesitation, until convinced 
by demonstrations which are founded upon the self- 
evident proposition that *' like causes produce like 
effects." 

7* 



LECTURE IV. 
GALVANISM. 

BY minute and careful investigation, and by a 
variety of practical experiments with apparatus, 
we have, thus far, ascertained the immutable laws by 
which the electrical agent is governed. By this 
investigation we have ascertained that it can be read- 
ily excited, and brought from its mysterious repose 
into action by friction, 



* Quick as spark from smitten steel, 
From nitrous grain the blaze." 



Well might its singular development astonish those 
who first beheld it, for a kind of enchantment seems to 
linger around the subject. By its instantaneous produc- 
tion, upon the proper application of an exciting cause, 
we are forcibly reminded of the fabulous legends of 
magic, though we know it to be reality, and not fable. 
The enchanted ring of Mustapha, the African magi- 
cian, or the wonderful lamp of Aladdin, when rubbed, 
brought into the presence of the holder one of the 
monstrous genii of the fables, irresistibly strong, but 
yet perfectly docile, and submissive to the will of the 
person who thus called him. In the same manner, 
when friction is applied to the cylinder of glass, forth 
leaps instanter the subtle and irresistible agent into 

78 



GAL VANISH. 79 

action and visibility, strong but yet docile as the 
fabled genii, a slave to the will even of an intelligent 
child, standing ready submissively to obey his dicta- 
tion, and to do his pleasure, if bidden in accordance 
with its organic laws. 

We have ascertained, also, that under certain cir- 
cumstances it invariably exhibits an attractive, and 
under other circumstances invariably a repulsive 
power, and that this attraction and repulsion are the 
cause of all the motions among the particles and light 
bodies of inert matter — that neither the theory of two 
fluids, as taught by Turner, Thompson and others, 
nor that of one fluid as taught by Franklin, with the 
superadded hypothesis of Epinus and Cavendish, 
accounts rationally and philosophically for the cause 
of attraction and repulsion — that that cause is to be 
found in the constitutional organic laws of the ultimate 
particles of electricity — that each ultimate particle 
has opposite polarities, from the fact that a current 
has opposite polarities, and from the self-evident 
axiom that the laws of the whole are the laws of its 
parts — that the outward current or emanation is 
always positive, because the positive end of the ulti- 
mate particles of that current is always presented — 
that the inward current is, upon the same principle, 
always negative, because the negative end of its ulti- 
mate particles is always presented — that two outward 
currents always repel each other, because the positive 
pole of the ultimate particles of one current is pre- 
sented to the positive pole of the ultimate particles o{ 
the other, and that two inward currents repel for the 
same reason, because like polarities always repel, 



8o A NE W PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

whether both be positive or both negative — that an 
outward current and an inward current, when pre- 
sented to each other, always attract, from the fact 
that the positive and negative ends of the ultimate 
particles of those two currents are then presented to 
each other, and unlike polarities, or positive and 
negative polarities, always attract. Before this theory, 
which is capable of absolute demonstration, if there be 
any certainty in reasoning from the data of self-evi- 
dent propositions, all difficulties vanish, and every 
phenomenon of attraction and repulsion can be 
accounted for philosophically. 

It was assumed, at the commencement of this course, 
that all the imponderables are one and the same 
agent. This we expect to prove to a demonstration, 
if we can prove that they are all governed by the very 
same constitutional or organic laws, and that their 
effects resulting from the operation of those laws are 
the same, which we shall certainly do, if there be any 
truth in that fundamental principle of logic, that like 
causes produce like effects. Having, then, ascertained 
the laws and agencies — or the causes and effects of 
the phenomena produced by this indivisible impon- 
derable principle, under one of its appellations, or in 
one department of its wondrous operations — we will 
proceed to the examination of the department next 
in order, which is denominated Galvanism, Its his- 
tory would be the first appropriate object of attention 
and remark. 

Galvanism is so called from Galvani, professor of 
surgical anatomy at Bologna, who was its reputed 
discoverer, and a scholar of considerable eminence. 



GALVANISM, 8 1 

Like several other important branches of science, it 
owes its origin to an accident, which occurred in the 
year 1791. These were the circumstances of that 
accident : Mrs. Galvani, at a certain time during the 
absence of her husband, observed the effect which 
electricity exerts upon the muscles of dead animals, 
through the medium of the nerves, from the acci- 
dental contact of the conductor of an electric machine 
with the crural muscle and lumbar nerve of a frog's 
leg, which had been dressed for food, and was lying 
upon a table near the machine in the professor's 
laboratory. This contact immediately produced 
violent convulsions in the frog. These, Madam Gal- 
vani happened to observe, and related them to her 
husband upon his return. As he was at that time in- 
vestigating the subject of animal electricity, he seized 
upon the idea with avidity, and repeated the experi- 
ment in a variety of ways with success. And thus — 
although Galvani is the reputed author and originator 
of this science — it is to an intelligent and observing 
lady that the world is doubtless indebted for the dis- 
covery of the powers of galvanism. 

In connection with this subject, it is worthy of 
remark that, in the history of the rise and progress 
of some of the most important sciences, some very 
trivial circumstance or mere accident has been the 
prime cause of surprising results and developments. 
It is somewhere recorded that Sir Isaac Newton was 
first led to those sublime investigations which over- 
turned the old Ptolemaic system of philosoph}', by a 
circumstance so simple as the fall of an apple, which 
suggested the subject of gravitation. The furious 



82 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

and forceful ebullition of a boiling tea-kettle gave rise 
to a train of thought which resulted in the invention 
of the steam-engine, and in the propulsion of steam- 
boats and locomotives, and the same may be said of 
many other useful inventions. Not only was the sci- 
ence of galvanism discovered by chance, but accident 
also led to the present arrangement of galvanic bat- 
teries. 

Upon metallic hooks, which were attached to the 
iron palisades of Galvani's garden, frogs happened to 
be hung up by the spine, after they had been dressed, 
as in the former case, for food (as frog-soup in those 
days and in those countries was regarded as a very 
dainty dish, although our epicureans might wonder 
at their singular tastes). Whenever, by the blowing 
of the wind, or by any other cause, the frogs were 
made to swing, so as to touch occasionally the pali- 
sades, they were thrown into convulsions. The pro- 
fessor, who observed it, was at first quite puzzled to 
account for the phenomenon. He imputed it, how- 
ever, to animal electricity. Professor Volta, of Pavia, 
objected to this conclusion, and affirmed that it must 
be the effect of the electricity produced by the contact 
of two m.etals, and that the muscles and nerves of the 
animal were only the medium through which it was 
conducted, and that the convulsions were produced 
by the effect of that electricity upon those muscles 
.and nerves. This conflict of opinion with opinion, 
and intellect with intellect, and the truths and facts 
which were elicited by the controversy, resulted, at 
length, in establishing the theory of Volta, that by 
forming a certain connection between different metals, 
electricity is produced. 



GALVANISM, 83 

The simplest galvanic arrangement is that in which 
a piece of zinc is placed beneath the tongue, and a 
piece of copper above it. Then, whenever the edges 
of the two metals, thus situated, are brought in con- 
tact, there will, whether the eyes be opened or closed, 
be perceived a slight flash of galvanic light. This 
flash will be produced as often as the metals are 
separated and brought in contact again. 

By putting a strip of zinc and one of copper into a 
tumbler of acidulated water, and bringing the two in 
contact at the top, galvanic effects are produced ; or, 
if they be set upright in the glass, and separate from 
each other, and in that position be connected by means 
of two wires soldered to the two plates, which wires 
are called poles, the same galvanic effects are produced. 

The eflects which are produced by an arrangement 
so simple are, however, imperceptible by any of the 
ordinary processes by which we ascertain the existence 
of a galvanic current. There will be perceived no sen- 
sible flash, if the circuit be broken and closed alter- 
nately, through mercury. No shock will be felt by 
the experimenter, as he forms a part of the circuit, 
nor will any effect be produced upon the muscles and 
nerves of animals. 

There is, however, an article of apparatus, called a 
galvanometer, or galvanic multiplier, which was in- 
vented by Schwciger, for the purpose of detecting and 
ascertaining very minute currents of galvanism, and 
their strength or intensity. This instrument is com- 
posed, in the language of Turner, of a copper wire 
" bent into a rectangular form, consisting of several 
coils, and in the centre of the rectangle is placed a 



84 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

delicately suspended needle. Each coil adds its in- 
fluence to that of the others ; and as the current, in 
its progress along the wire, passes repeatedly above 
and below the needle in opposite directions, their 
joint action is the same. In order to prevent the 
electricity from passing laterally from one coil to 
another in contact with it, the wire should be covered 
with silk. The ends of the wire are left free for the 
purpose of communication with the opposite ends of 
a voltaic circle. When a single needle is employed 
in the experiment, its movements are influenced partly 
by the earth's magnetism, and partly by the electric 
current. The indications are much more delicate 
when the needle is rendered astatic — that is, when 
its directive property is destroyed by the proximity 
of another needle of equal magnetic intensity, fixed 
parallel to it, and in a reversed position, each needle 
having its north pole adjacent to the south pole of the 
other; in this state the needles, neutralizing each 
other, are unaffected by the magnetism of the earth, 
while they are still subject to the influence of galvan- 
ism. For researches of delicacy, the needles should 
be suspended by a slender long thread of glass, and 
the deflecting force measured, not by the length of 
the arc traversed by the needle, but by the torsion 
required to keep the needle at a constant distance 
from the wire, as in the torsion electrometer of 
Coulomb." 

The mutual influence of a magnetic pole and a con- 
ducting-wire changes with the distance between them. 
Experiment shows that the action of a magnetic pole 
and a continuous conductor, every point of which 



GAL VANISH. 85 

exerts a separate energy on the pole, varies inversely 
as the distance. This result justified the opinion that 
the force of a magnetic pole on a single point of a 
conductor varies as the square of the distance, the 
same law which regulates the distribution of heat and 
light, as well as the effects due to electricity. 

It is not absolutely necessary that there should be 
connected together two plates to produce a galvanic 
current. A simple voltaic circle may be formed by 
one metal and two liquids, so arranged, and possessing 
such different degrees of decomposing power, that one 
side of the metal shall be acted upon more intensely 
by the decomposing agent than the other. In order 
to test this, let a piece of zinc, for instance, be 
cemented into a box, so as to leave a cell on each 
side of the plate. Then, by putting a solution of salt 
into one cell, and nitric acid into the other, a positive 
current will run from the cell containing the solution 
of salt, if the liquid of the two cells be connected by 
means of a metallic conductor. And galvanic excite- 
ment can be produced even with one metal and 07ie 
solution, possessing the same decomposing power, 
provided that the acid in one of the cells be warmer 
than that in the other ; in which case, the warm acid 
will decompose the zinc more rapidly than the cold, 
and, of course, a current of positive electricity will set 
from the side of the plate affected by the warm acid, 
round to the side affected by the cold. 

From the facts developed by the above experiment, 

it must appear evident to every one that galvanism 

affords no support to the theory of two fluids. There 

is evidently but one current, and that appears, as is 

8 



S6 A NE W PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

abundantly shown by this apparatus, to depend upon 
a plus and a minus. The side affected by the warm 
acid decomposes the zinc the most rapidly, and is, 
therefore, plus with regard to the other side, which 
decomposes less rapidly. The current, of course, runs 
from the plus to the minus, in accordance with an im- 
mutable and universal law of nature. For what is that 
current — what, in fact, is galvanism ? — but the latent 
caloric of the metal set free by the combined action 
of its own powers and those of the 'acid ? And why 
does the current run from the plus to the minus, if it 
be not in obedience to a law of caloric, which always 
seeks to restore and keep up an equilibrium in nature? 
It certainly must be in obedience to such a law, and 
we do not believe that any chemist can philosophically 
and rationally account for it in any other way. It 
must be something which is set at liberty by the 
decomposition of the zinc, and the more rapid the 
decomposition, the greater the amount set free. If 
that agent, thus set free, be not latent caloric, it would 
puzzle a philosopher to define what it is. 

The current of a battery always runs from the 
electro-positive metal to the electro-negative, because 
the electro-positive metal is always rapidly decom- 
posed by the action of the acid, while the electro- 
negative is scarcely affected at all. The latent caloric, 
being set free, obeys, therefore, the immutable law of 
free caloric, and runs from a plus to a minus, and that 
constitutes galvanism. If this be true, as it doubtless 
is, it annihilates the last vestige of support for the 
theory of two fluids, and proves to a demonstration 
that there is but one. So impressed was Turner with 



GAL VANISH. 8/ 

the fact that galvanism furnishes no support for the 
doctrine of two fluids, that he seems to have abandoned 
it, in a measure, in his explanations of the passage of 
the galvanic current. He says, on page 88 of his 
Chemistry : A current of negative electricity, agree- 
ably to the theory of two electric fluids, ought to 
traverse the apparatus in a direction precisely reversed; 
but, for the sake of simplicity, I shall hereafter indicate 
the course of the positive current only. 

A still more efficient arrangement, but yet a very 
simple one, it being one of the first inventions in the 
infancy of the science, consists of a series of glasses, 
or glass tumblers, connected with each other by a 
metallic arc, with a piece of zinc at one end and a 
piece of silver or copper at the other. These glasses 
are filled with some saline or acidulated solution, as 
salt water, or sulphuric acid, or diluted sulphate of 
copper, and the circuit is then closed by the experi- 
menter, by putting the fingers of one hand into the 
glass at one extremity, and those of the other into the 
glass at the other extremity. In this situation a person 
will receive a shock every time he replaces his fingers 
after removing them. 

Another very cheap and simple galvanic arrange- 
ment can be made by taking a number of pieces of 
common window-glass, throe or four inches square, 
and after coating them on one side with zinc foil, and, 
on the other with copper or silver foil, by placing thcin 
upon each other, the two opposite metals being always 
in contact, taking the precaution, however, when coat- 
ing the glass, not to let the metals cover its entire 
surface. Each additional plate of glass thus coated 



88 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

will increase the electric influence of such a pile, but 
yet some thirty or forty must be so connected in order 
to give any degree of intensity. 

Instead of using glass, which is a non-conductor, 
if we use discs of paper, which is an imperfect con- 
ductor, similar electrical phenomena will be produced, 
though somewhat more intense, with a given number 
of coatings of zinc and copper foil. To construct such 
an apparatus, the most convenient method is to cut 
the paper into round pieces about the size of a half 
dollar, suitable for admission within a good-sized 
glass tube, after having coated them on each side 
with zinc and copper foil, observing to have the coat 
of zinc always downward and that of copper always 
upward, or that of copper always downward and that 
of zinc always upward, which is immaterial. The 
tube should be long enough to hold one or two thou- 
sand of those discs, and the two ends be closed with 
some metallic plate in contact with the discs, provided 
with connecting-wires or poles. The zinc end of such 
a pile is always positive, and the copper end always 
negative. And why ? Because the current is always 
outward from the zinc, and inward to the copper, 
which shows that, relatively, with regard to each 
other, the zinc is always charged plus, and the copper 
minus. 

Such an apparatus as we have described constituted 
what has been called the dry columns of Zamboni 
and De Luc, two of which the latter constructed, and, 
having placed them near each other, so that the 
positive pole of the one would correspond with the 
negative of the other, he suspended between them an 



GAL VANISM, 89 

insulated bell, with an insulated ball on each side, 
which kept up a continual ringing for years, with only 
now and then a slight intermission. A light insulated 
needle, properly arranged, and balanced upon a pivot, 
would oscillate continually between them. 

The next improvement in the construction of 
galvanic apparatus, and one which Thompson remarks 
"should be ranked among the greatest discoveries, 
from the enlargement which it has given to our 
knowledge of electricity, and its effects, and the ex- 
tension and perfection of chemical science, is the 
voltaic pile, so called from Volta, professor of natural 
philosophy at Pavia. If we compare the state of 
chemistry before the discovery of the voltaic pile, 
with its present aspect, we cannot but be astonished 
at the difference ; and this difference is, in a great 
measure, owing to the discoveries made by means of 
this new instrument of investigation." The improve- 
ment spoken of consisted in substituting plates of 
metal for the foil or leaf, and wet instead of dry 
columns, which vastly increased its power. This 
pile consisted of alternate layers of circular plates of 
zinc and silver, or zinc and copper, with card or paste- 
board between them, moistened with some saline 
solution. To the two extremities of this pile, being 
in opposite states of electricity, conducting-wires were 
attached, and, when brought into contact, galvanic 
phenomena were produced. The greater the number 
of alternate layers of such a pile, the greater the 
electrical intensity, or, if it be desirable to construct 
a pile of this *kind of .considerable power, and it be 

inconvenient to form it in one pile, two may bo used 
8* 



90 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

just as well, by connecting the positive pole of the 
one with the negative pole of the other. 

The prominent leading object which we shall have 
in view, in our experiments and deductions from 
them, will be to establish, beyond the possibility of a 
rational doubt, the identity of the imponderables. 
One of the illustrations, which will aid in the demon- 
stration of that fact is the similarity between the gal- 
vanic and the electric spark. If I alternately break 
and close the circuit of the pile, as It is called, through 
the medium of a cup of mercury— that is, if I keep 
one pole constantly in the mercury, and alternately 
insert and remove the other, there will be an explosion 
of a brilliant spark consequent upon every removal, 
which every one can perceive is precisely similar to 
the electric spark. 

In proof of identity, there is another conclusive 
illustration. If I place the two poles of the pile in 
contact with the knob of a Leyden jar, and keep 
them in contact for some time, the jar will be charged 
the same as with an electric machine, though Its in- 
tensity will be somewhat lower. This fact can be 
shown by discharging It with an electric discharger. 

This pile will give out shocks like an electric 
machine. If a finger of each hand be first moistened 
with water or some acidulated solution, and be touched 
to the two poles of the pile, there will be perceived 
a shock more or less Intense, in accordance with the 
number of plates in the arrangement. Just such a 
shock will be repeated every time the person trying 
the experiment shall make and break the connection, 
by removing and replacing one of his fingers. But 



GALVANISM. 9 1 

if the finger be continued in contact, without making 
or breaking the connection, there will be no particular 
sensation produced, or perceptible, unless there be, 
somewhere on the hand, a rupture of the skin, in 
which case there will be experienced a slight burning 
sensation. 

There is another experiment, which will develop a 
very extraordinary and mysterious fact respecting one 
of the inherent constituent properties of electricity, 
which we shall thoroughly investigate in this con- 
nection, and see if it does not throw a flood of new 
light upon the phenomena of disease, the best 
methods of medical treatment in certain cases, and 
rthe hidden organic causes and laws of chemical 
changes — of decompositions and recompositions. 
The fact to which I shall allude is this : 

If a person shall touch the negative end of the 
voltaic pile with a moistened finger, and bring a 
platinum or gold wire from the positive end in con- 
tact with the tongue, a strong acid taste will be per- 
ceptible in the mouth of the experimenter. But if 
the wire from the negative end be brought in contact 
with the tongue while the moistened finger be placed 
in contact with the positive pole, there will, on the 
contrary, be produced in the mouth a strong burning 
or alkaline taste. Now, why is this ? The answer 
to this question might well of itself fill a volume, 
for it is a key to unlock the rich casket Q){ a thousand 
mysteries. It cannot, therefore, be expected that I 
should do more than merely glance at the solution 
of this wonderful phenomenon, in the space allotted 
for the completion of this lecture, and if, in ni)' anxiety 



92 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

to do as much justice to the subject as can be done 
in a ' single lecture, I should extend my remarks 
somewhat beyond the ordinary bounds of one, I 
hope that my reader will not be offended with this 
burdensome tax upon his patience. 

To proceed, then, why will the positive pole, when 
brought in contact with the tongue, produce an acid 
taste, and the negative pole an alkaline taste? We 
shall assume, in the first place, as the ba.sis or data 
of our reasonings and deductions upon the subject, 
that it must be something inherent in the galvanic 
current itself, or in some chemical change produced 
in the system by the course of the passing current, 
or in both combined. We believe it to be in both 
combined. 

In our investigations of common electricity, it will 
be recollected that we established, upon the basis of 
a self-evident proposition or axiom, that one end of 
its ultimate particles is opposite entirely in its nature 
to the other end, since one. end of a current is attractive 
and the other repulsive, and, as the laws of a whole 
are the laws of its parts, then, of course, each atom 
of that whole has an attractive and a repulsive power, 
by the opposite polarity of its opposite sides. Now 
then, if, as is demonstrated in the experiment just re- 
ferred to, the whole current has a taste, just in ac- 
cordance with the direction in which it runs across 
the tongue, each ultimate particle, which aids in con- 
stituting that current and its organic laws, has also a 
taste in accordance with the direction in which it runs, 
as can be proven by the same process of reasoning. 

It is demonstrated, then, by experiment and by 



GAL VANISM. 93 

deductions built upon self-evident propositions, that 
each of the two ends of the ultimate particles of 
electricity have opposite tastes — the one an alkaline 
and the other an acid taste. 

Now how admirably this fact exhibits the uniformity 
of nature's laws ! How lucidly it proves that there is 
no clashing at all in the principles of her government ! 
What a firm and immovable basis it lays for confidence, 
that, when we have ascertained, beyond the possibility 
of doubt, one isolated fact, proving the existence of 
a certain definite law, other facts, when discovered, 
will harmonize with the evidence of the first fact, if 
they relate to the same subject or class of subjects, and 
will increase the weight of proof as to the existence of 
such a law, thus chaining the uniform testimony of 
isolated facts together into an harmonious and irresist- 
ibly convincing sum-total of proof, and thus giving 
a satisfactory and almost mathematical certainty to 
our knowledge ! 

What is the corroborating testimony of facts in the 
case under consideration? It is this: We demon- 
strated in our last lecture, by a series of deductions 
based upon experiments, that the two ends of every 
ultimate particle of electricity have opposite polarities 
— that when a body is charged plus there is an 
emanation — that in every emanation or outward 
current the ultimate particles of the agent that con- 
stitutes it present their positive end, as that always 
leads — that a minus body has an inlialatiou of the 
electric breeze, as it were, or an inward current from 
surrounding substances, and is negative, because the 
rear end of each particle, or that which always follows 



94 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

the lead of the positive in all the movements of elec- 
tricity, is, in its organic constitution, negative. 

Now then for a forcible illustration of the admirable 
uniformity of those facts which demonstrate nature's 
laws. When a current of electricity runs in at the 
tongue, it leaves an acid taste, and when out of the 
tongue, an alkaline taste. Now the inward current, 
as we have before frequently remarked, presents its 
negative end, and the outward its positive end. In the 
inward current, the negative end of each particle, as 
it passes in, gives inherent organic taste, and so with 
the other. Now, in what electrical states are the 
alkalies and the acids ? Why, exactly in -opposite' 
states. The acids are negative, and the alkalies are 
positive. The inward current has a negative polarity, 
and is also acid, and the outward has a positive polarity 
and is alkalirie. The positive and negative, Aen, in 
both cases — yea, in the whole three cases, agree 
perfectly, both as to taste and polarity — the taste of 
the negative end of a current being acid, which acid 
in the form of salts is also negative, and the taste of 
the positive end of a current being alkaline, which 
alkaline, in the form of salts, is also positive. The 
strong chemical affinity which exists between the 
alkalies and the acids is familiar to all. Tartaric acid 
and soda, for instance, v/hen brought in contact with 
each other in solution, are attracted to each other, a 
powerful effervescence ensues, and a chemical union 
is formed between the two. Now this attraction must 
be entirely owing to the attraction of positive and 
negative electricity, or of opposite polarities, since the 
one is plus and the other minus, and since a founda- 



GALVANISM. 95 

tion seems to be laid for an alkali and an acid in the 
organic constitution of the ultimate particles of elec- 
tricity itself. 

In the harmonizing facts which the experiments 
develop, we doubtless discover the very fundamental 
cause of all chemical attractions or affinities, and, of 
course, of all chemical changes, as well as the causes 
of disease and the most appropriate remedies for such 
disease. 

After having given a further description of the 
progress of the science of galvanism in the construc- 
tion, improvement, and use of apparatus, we will then 
discuss in full the several topics of the chemical 
decomposition of substances, the various causes and 
phenomena of disease in the human system, so far as 
they depend upon the different electrical states of that 
system, and the appropriate remedies for such disease 
and the chemical reasons why such remedies in certain 
cases are available. 

The next invention which followed those to which 
we have alluded was that of the trough or galvanic 
battery, by Mr. Cruikshanks, of Woolwich, England, 
which succeeded the voltaic pile, and, with improve- 
ments, is now generally used. His trough consisted 
of baked mahogany, about four inches wide and four 
deep. Into grooves cut in the sides and bottom of 
this trough, at small distances from each other, were 
inserted alternate plates of zinc and copper soldered 
together at the ends, and cemented into the grooves 
by sealing-wax, or some other similar material, so as 
to prevent the water from passing from owe cell to 
another. Into these insulated cells was poured either 



96 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

a saline or strongly acidulated solution, and the 
extreme plates were brought into connection by 
means of conducting-wires, called poles. 

This battery was very materially improved by so 
constructing it that the zinc plates could be lifted out 
of the cells when not in use, and thus their otherwise 
rapid corrosion was, in a measure, prevented. 

Following this are the improvements made by Dr. 
Hare, of Philadelphia, and which are thus described 
by Thompson : 

" Dr. Hare,* professor of chemistry at Philadelphia, 
has contrived a new modification of the galvanic 
apparatus. He takes two plates, one of copper and 
the other of zinc, and placing a disc of leather 
between the two, he rolls them up in the form of a 
spiral. The leather disc is now removed, and the two 
metals are prevented from touching each other by 
interposing slips of wood. Each of these plates is 
made to communicate with a plate of a different kind 
of metal, the zinc with copper, and the copper with 
zinc, precisely in the way already described when 
giving an account of the troughs. A number of these 
double spirals are fixed upon a piece of wood in the 
same way as has been just explained. These cylinders 
are now introduced, each into a cylindrical glass vessel. 
This method of construction is attended with several 
important advantages. By this contrivance, plates of 
a very large size may be introduced into a small ves- 
sel ; so that the expenditure of liquid is the least pos- 
sible ; besides, the greatest part of the two sides of 
each plate is active, being placed opposite to a face 
of the other metal. 

* Dr. Hare died a number of years since. 



GAL VANISM. 9/ 

" Dr. Hare has constructed another apparatus,which 
he calls a deflagrator, and which appears to possess 
very great power. He takes a plate of zinc three or 
four inches square, and closes it in a case of copper, 
distant from it about a line, and touching it nowhere. 
Any number of these plates, thus enclosed in copper, 
is attached to a horizontal piece of wood, and fixed 
immovably, that there may be no risk of the plate of 
zinc touching the copper case in which it is enclosed. 
The zinc plate at the first of these is united at the top 
to the copper case of the next zinc plate ; and this is 
continued through the whole. These copper cases 
are placed at a very small distance from each other, 
and between each pair is introduced a piece of card 
dipped in linseed-oil, varnish, and half dry. They are 
then compressed so as to adhere so closely to each 
other that no water can insinuate itself between them. 
Things being thus disposed, the apparatus is plunged 
into a trough containing the liquid, and not divided 
into cells ; the varnished card answering all the pur- 
poses of the diaphragms in the porcelain troughs. 
Four such pieces of apparatus, containing each fifty 
plates of zinc, surrounded by its copper case, when 
plunged into the proper troughs produce very power- 
ful effects. 

" The apparatus employed by Oersted, and of the 
efficacy of which he speaks in high terms, approaches 
very nearly to this last one of Hare. Indeed the 
theoretical construction of both is the same." 

I have not time to describe the various experiments 
and improvements of Morichini, Professor Oersted, 
of Copenhagen, Sir Humphrey Davy, and several 
9 G 



98 A NE W PHIL O SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

others. I would only remark that it has been ascer- 
tained that an arrangement of a very large number 
of small plates constitutes the kind of battery to be 
used in giving shocks and in chemical decompositions, 
and that an arrangement of a few plates, exposing a 
very large surface, constitutes the proper kind for 
evolving very great heat. 

Dr. Ure, of Glasgow, in Scotland, performed, some 
time since, upon the body of a murderer, whojiad 
been hung, several experiments with a battery of the 
former kind, consisting of two hundred and seventy 
pairs of four-inch plates. 

1st. One pole of this battery was introduced into 
an incision in the nape of the neck, so as to come 
in contact with the spinal marrow, while the other 
was applied to what is called the sciatic nerve. The 
consequence was that every muscle of the body was 
agitated with a convulsive quiver, as if violently 
shuddering from the effect of cold. 

2d. By continuing one pole in the nape of the neck, 
as before, and removing the other to an incision made 
in the heel, the knee being previously bent, the leg 
was thrown out with such force and violence as nearly 
to kick over one of the assistants who attempted to 
prevent its extension. 

3d. One pole was inserted in an incision made to 
what is called the phrenic nerve, and the other 
between the ribs, so as to touch the diaphragm at the 
bottom of the lungs. The consequence was that 
the chest rose and fell as in heavy natural breathing. 

4th. One pole was brought in contact with the 
supra-orbital nerve in the forehead, and the other with 



GAL VANISH. 99 

the heel, when every muscle of the countenance was 
simultaneously thrown into fearful action. Rage, 
horror, despair and ghastly smiles united their hideous 
expression in the murderer's countenance. So horrid 
was the sight that several spectators were forced to 
leave the room in which the experiments were made, 
either from terror or sickness, and one gentleman 
fainted. 

5th. One pole was inserted again in the nape of the 
neck, and the other brought in contact with the ulnar 
nerve at the elbow. Immediately the fingers moved 
nimbly like those of a violin-performer. An assistant 
tried to close the hand, but found it would open forci- 
bly, in spite of his efforts. When the rod was removed 
from the elbow to a slight incision in the forefinger, 
the fist being previously clenched, that finger instantly 
extended, and, by the convulsive agitation of the arm, 
the murderer seemed to point to the different spec- 
tators, some of whom thought he had come to life. 

With the foregoing series of interesting experiments, 
we shall bring to a conclusion the present lecture, 
and defer the further consideration of galvanism to 
the next, requesting the reader, however, before we 
dismiss the subject, to keep in recollection those ex- 
periments in particular, as we think they will throw 
some light upon the subject when we come to con- 
sider the agency of the electric principle in the 
various departments of orgajiic life, and the abstruse 
science of Pathology. 



LECTURE V. 

GALVANISM. — Continued. 

BEFORE commencing a discussion upon the 
subject of the chemical changes produced by the 
imponderable principle in ponderable matter, whether 
organic or inorganic, we will give a description of 
one or two other important pieces of galvanic appara- 
tus now in use. 

" Dr. Hare's calorimotor, as it is called, is a battery 
of the other kind, which evolves great heat, and yet 
produces but a slight electric effect upon the muscular 
system, and in the chemical decomposition of sub- 
stances. He constructed it of several eighteen-inch 
plates, and had it so arranged that all the plates of 
copper were joined together by a band of metal, and 
those of zinc in the same way. By this arrangement, 
all the plates became, in fact, but one pair, having an 
immense surface exposed to the galvanic action. 

Mr. Children, of England, in 1814 constructed one 
of this kind, consisting of twenty pairs of zinc and 
copper plates, each six feet long, and two feet six 
inches broad, joined together with straps of lead. By 
immersing this battery in a mixture of nitric and 
sulphuric acids, with from twenty to forty times their 
weight of water, the following experiments were 
made : A platinum wire five feet six inches long, and 



GAL VANISH. lOI 

jy(j of an inch in diameter, was made red-hot through- 
out, so that the ignition was visible in full day-light. 
Eight feet and six inches of platinum wire, -^-^^ of an 
inch in diameter, were heated red. A bar of platinum, 
\ of an inch square and two inches and a quarter long, 
was heated red-hot, and melted at the end. A round 
bar of the same metal, -^^-q^ of an inch in diameter, 
and two and a quarter inches long, was heated bright 
red throughout. 

Before passing to other topics, it may be appropri- 
ate, in connection with the subject of galvanic bat- 
teries, to remark upon the different solutions used in 
experimenting, and their various effects. This we 
will do in the language of Thompson, page 517 : 

" The energy of the galvanic battery depends very 
much upon the nature of the liquid employed as a 
conductor between the pairs of plates. The better 
conductor of electricity it is, the more powerful, ceteris 
paribus, is the energy of the battery. When we em- 
ploy pure water, the energy is a minimum. Indeed, 
it seems doubtful whether the pile possesses any 
activity, when the water used is perfectly pure, and 
perfectly freed from atmospherical air. Water con- 
taining a salt in solution answers much better, 
because the addition of a salt increases very much the 
conducting power of water. Common salt, sulphate 
of soda, alum, nitre, or sal-ammoniac, are often em- 
ployed. The more easily the salt is decomposed, the 
better docs it answer. Acids on that account answer 
better than salts. The three acids usually employed 
are the sulphuric, muriatic, and nitric. 0{ those the 
muriatic acid has the least energy; the sulphuric 
9* 



102 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

comes next in order : but the nitric acid is the most 
efficacious of all. 

"The stronger the saline or acid solution is, the 
more powerful is the action of the battery. The 
action of nitric acid is the most energetic ; but it 
ceases most speedily. The experiments of Gay Lus- 
sac and Thenard have shown that the addition of ten, 
twenty, thirty, etc., parts of concentrated nitric acid 
to a given weight of water, increases the intensity of 
the battery ten, twenty, thirty, etc., times, or that the 
energy is directly proportional to the strength of the 
acid employed. The charge usually employed in 
this country is a mixture of one part oi concentrated 
acid with about twenty or twenty-five parts of water. 

"The action of the sulphuric acid lasts longer than 
that of the nitric, and that of the muriatic is more 
lasting than that of the sulphuric. The addition of 
some sulphuric acid to the nitric acid solution (as was 
the practice of Sir H. Davy) renders the action much 
longer, because the sulphuric acid prevents the nitric 
acid from being saturated by the oxide of zinc formed. 
The energy, of course, continues till the whole nitric 
acid is decomposed. 

" Of the salts, sal-ammoniac is the most powerful. 
A solution of common salt in vinegar acts well, and 
is most commonly used by experimenters, as the 
cheapest ingredient likely to answer the purpose." 

Having given a sufficient account of the galvanic 
apparatus, it is time to turn our attention to the effects 
which it produces. 

In a former lecture of the course, we assumed, it 
will be recollected, that there were but three essential 



GAL VANISH. I03 

principles in creation — viz., ponderable matter, impon- 
derable matter, and 7nind, and that all the chemical 
changes within the whole wide range of philosophic 
investigation were produced by the energizing influ- 
ence of the imponderable principle over ponderable 
matter. This, we are aware, is stating a proposition, 
somewhat new, in strong and decided terms — is 
taking a position which has not been definitely taken 
by any standard authors upon the subject, although 
they have published many things and facts which will 
be of very essential service in aiding to establish fully 
what we are attempting to demonstrate ; and, as many 
may, very probably, be disposed to regard the position 
as wholly untenable, we shall first quote largely from 
Thompson to show what has been ascertained by 
experiment, as he seems to have taken much pains to 
collocate and condense the recorded results of the 
labors of learned and practical chemists. 

Our first examinations will be confined to inorganic 
substances, and, as we quote the opinions of others, 
we shall regard them merely as opinions, disconnected 
entirely from the facts recorded, which opinions we 
shall not regard as resting upon an infallible basis of 
reasoning, nor shall we endorse their conclusions as 
resulting necessarily from the facts in the case, except 
where it shall appear perfectly conclusive that they do. 

We shall also premise another thing before pro- 
ceeding to make those quotations : they may not be 
arranged exactly in that methodical order and concise 
form which would strictly comport with a work 
designed to be so condensed as this. 

We will first quote what Thompson says, between 



I04 A NEW PHIL OSOPH Y OF MA TTER. 

pages 491 and 495, under the head of "Electricity by 
Contact : " 

" A considerable number of experiments on elec- 
tricity by contact were made by Sir H. Davy. When 
oxalic, succinic, benzoic, or boracic acid, perfectly 
dry, either in powder or in crystals, are touched upon 
an extended surface with a plate of copper, insulated 
by a glass handle, the copper becomes positive, and 
the acids 7iegaiive. When zinc or tin is substituted 
for copper, the effect is the same. Phosphoric acid, 
perfectly dry, when applied to copper becomes neg- 
ative, and the copper positive. When metallic plates 
are made to touch dry lime, strontian, barytes, or 
magnesia, these alkaline bodies become positive, the 
metal negative. With soda the effect is the same. 
Potash attracts moisture so rapidly that the experi- 
ment cannot be tried with it. When sulphur is 
applied to polished lead, or. to any other metal, it 
becomes positive.* 

*' It has been ascertained that electricity, when 
employed in the way described heretofore, and known 
by the name of the voltaic battery, is capable of 
decomposing all compound bodies, and the decompo- 
sition takes place according to a particular law. 
When two platinum wires attached to the two poles 
of the battery are plunged into a vessel of water, the 
water is reduced into its elements, and the oxygen is 
always extricated , from the wire attached to the 
positive pole, while the hydrogen rises from the wire 
attached to the negative pole. When the wires are 
plunged into a strong solution of muriatic acid, the 

* Phil. Trans., 1807, p. 34. 



GAL VANISH. IO5 

chlorine is accumulated round the positive wire, and 
the hydrogen round the negative. The law accord- 
ing to which hydrobromic and hydriodic acids are 
decomposed is the same. The bromine and iodine 
are attracted to the positive pole, while the hydrogen 
is attracted to the negative pole. When chloride of 
sodium or potassium is decomposed, the chlorine 
passes to the positive pole, while the sodium and 
potassium pass to the negative pole. Were a com- 
pound of sulphur with oxygen to be decomposed, the 
oxygen would attach itself to the positive pole. But 
with sulphuret of zinc or of iron the case would be 
different ; the sulphur would collect round the posi- 
tive pole, and the metal round the negative pole. 
When salts are decomposed, the acid is attracted to 
the positive pole, and the base to the negative. 

" Now, as bodies are attracted by those in a dif- 
ferent state of excitement from themselves, it also 
follows that oxygen, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and 
acids would not be attracted to the positive pole, 
unless they themselves were in a negative state ; 
nor would hydrogen and bases be attracted to the 
negative pole unless they were in a positive state. 
From this it has been concluded that bodies which 
have an attraction for each other are in opposite states 
of electricity, and that it is to these opposite states that 
their attraction for each other, and their union with 
each other, are owing. The current of electricity de- 
stroys their union by bringing them into the same 
electrical state. In consequence of this view, which 
is at least exceedingly ingenious and plausible, bodies 
have been divided into two sets — those which are 



io6 



A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 



negative, and those which are positive. The following 
table exhibits a list of the negative bodies, beginning 
with those which possess the negative property in 
the highest degree, and terminating with those in 
which it is lowest : 

Oxygen, 

Chlorine, 



Bromine, 

Iodine, 

Sulphur, 

Phosphorus, 

Selenium, 

Arsenic,, 

Titanium, 



Molybdenum, 

Chromium 

Tungsten, 

Boron, 

Carbon, 

Antimony, 

Tellurium, 

Columbium, 

Silicon. 



'* The following table exhibits a list of the positive 
bodies, beginning with the one in which the property- 
is weakest, and ending with the one in which it is 
strongest : 



Gold, 

Platinum, 

Palladium, 

Osmium, 

Iridium, 

Rhodium, 

Mercury, 

Silver, 

Copper, 

Nickle, 

Cobalt, ' 

Bismuth, 

Tin, 

Zirconium, 

Lead, 

Cerium, 



Uranium, 

Iron, 

Cadmium, 

Zinc, 

Manganese, 

Aluminum, 

Thorinum, 

Yttrium, 

Glucinum, 

Magnesium, 

Calcium, 

Strontium, 

Barium, 

Lithium, 

Sodium, 

Potassium. 



GAL VAN ISM. 10/ 

" It is not easy to decide where hydrogen should 
be placed. Compared with oxygen it is strongly 
positive. But it combines with the potassium, and 
must with respect to it be negative. The bodies 
nearest the head of the first list being most powerfully 
negative, have the greatest chemical affinity for each 
other. Bodies in the same list have but little affinity 
for each other; those towards the bottom of the first 
list have but little affinity with those towards the top 
of the second list. However, the bodies in the same 
list are not destitute of affinity for each other. Thus, 
sulphur combines readily with arsenic. Because these 
two bodies assume different states with respect to 
each other. When we decompose sulphuret of 
arsenic, the sulphur is attracted to the positive pole, 
and the arsenic to the negative — showing that the 
former is in a negative state, and the latter in a 
positive. It is for this reason that almost all the 
substances constituting the first list are capable of 
uniting with each other as well as with those of the 
second. Now, it deserves attention, that when the 
bodies constituting the first list unite with each other, 
they constitute acids or substances which act the 
part of acids ; when they combine with the substances 
constituting the second list, they constitute bases or 
substances which act the part of bases. All the acids 
are combinations of the negative bodies with each 
other; all the bases arc compounds of the ncgati\'e 
bodies with the positive. I have left out a7.ote, 
because it is not easy to say where it ought to stand ; 
but it belongs undoubtodh' to the class o{ nogati\c 
bodies, and should stand probably before suIpJiur. 



1 08 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

" Hydrogen I have purposely omitted. It consti- 
tutes acids by combining with the greater number of 
the negative bodies ; but we are ignorant at present 
of any compound which it forms with any of the 
positive bodies, excepting with potassium, which, 
according to the experiments of Gay Lussac and 
Thenard, absorbs hydrogen gas and forms a com- 
pound. But this combination has not succeeded in 
the hands of other experimenters. 

" Ever since the discovery of the identity of light- 
ning and electricity, the attention of electricians has 
been turned to the accumulation of electricity in the 
atmosphere. And various causes for such an accu- 
mulation have been assigned. The opinion of Volta 
has been most commonly adopted. According to 
him, whenever a body changes its state, it becomes 
electric. Now, water is continually ascending into 
the atmosphere in the state of vapor, or falling from 
it in the state of rain. By these continual changes 
of state, which this fluid undergoes, Volta supposed 
that the accumulation of electricity in the atmosphere 
was chiefly produced. This opinion was verified by 
Lavoisier and Laplace. But when Saussure repeated 
the experiments, he was unable to obtain any satis- 
factory results. M. Pouillet has recently examined 
the subject with much care, and has found that no 
sensible quantity of electricity is evolved when water 
changes its state, unless at the same time some 
chemical action more or less vigorous accompanies 
the change. But whenever two gaseous bodies unite 
with each other, or a gaseous body with a solid body, 
one of the uniting bodies always gives out positive 



GAL VANISH. IO9 

electricity, and the other negative electricity.* These 
experiments being of great importance, both for un- 
derstanding the sources of atmospherical electricity, 
and for determining the kind of electricity possessed 
by those bodies which have a chemical affinity for 
each other, it will be worth while to state them some- 
what particularly. When charcoal is burnt it some- 
times gives out positive, and sometimes negative 
electricity, and sometimes no electricity at all. This 
depends upon the way in which the combustion is 
conducted. To obtain constant results, M. Pouillet 
proceeded in the following manner: He took a piece 
of charcoal of such a diameter that it could receive 
the form of a cylinder whose bases were nearly plain. 
This piece of charcoal was placed vertically, two 
inches and a half, or three inches, below a plate of 
brass which rests upon one of the discs of the con- 
denser. The charcoal communicated with the ground, 
and was lighted at its superior base, taking care that 
the fire did not reach the lateral surface. A current 
of carbonic acid rises and strikes against the plate, 
and in a few minutes the condenser is charged. The 
electricity which it receives from the carbonic acid 
gas is always positive. If the plane be allowed to 
communicate to the sides of the charcoal, or if it be 
inclined so that the carbonic acid formed must slide 
up along the base of the charcoal, no sensible effect 
is obtained. 

'* To obtain the electricity which the charcoal itself 
takes by combustion, M. Pouillet placed its inferior 
end directly upon the disc of the condenser, and then 

* Ann, de Chim. et dc Phys., xxxv., 401. 



1 10 A NEW PHIL O SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

lighted its superior base. In a few minutes the con- 
denser was charged with negative electricity. From 
these experiments, we learn that when charcoal is 
burnt it becomes charged with negative electricity, 
while the carbonic acid evolved is charged with posi- 
tive electricity. Now, the combustion of charcoal is 
the combination of it with oxygen, so as to constitute 
carbonic acid. According to Pouillet, during this 
combination, the oxygen gives out positive electricity, 
which is found in the carbonic acid gas, while the 
charcoal gives out negative electricity, which is found 
in the portion of the charcoal not yet burned. Now, 
when the carbonic acid gas is again decomposed into 
its elements, the oxygen takes back positive electricity, 
and the carbon negative electricity. Is not this the 
reason why the oxygen gas is attracted towards the 
positive pole of the voltaic battery, while the carbon 
is attracted to the negative pole? 

" The flame of hydrogen gave contradictory results 
with respect to its electricity, as has been the case 
also at first with charcoal. In the course of a few 
minutes it gave indications both of positive and neg- 
ative electricity ; very intense and very weak indica- 
tions, and often it was impossible to obtain any 
indication at all. But these difficulties were at length 
overcome by M. Pouillet in the following manner: 

** The hydrogen gas was made to flow out of a glass 
tube. The flame was vertical, having a breadth of 
four or five lines, and a height of about three inches. 
A coil of platinum wire was employed to conduct the 
electricity from the flame to the condenser. When 
this coil was so much larger than the flame as to 



GAL VANISH. 1 1 1 

enclose it, and to be distant from its external surface 
about four inches, signs of positive electricity made 
their appearance. These signs became more and 
more intense as the distance diminished. But when 
the coil became so small as to touch the flame, the 
electrical signs became weak and uncertain. Thus it 
appears that round the flame of hydrogen there is a 
sort of atmosphere at least four inches in thickness, 
which is always charged with positive electricity. 

" If a very small coil of platinum wire be placed in 
the centre of the flame, in such a manner that it is 
enveloped on all sides, and made to communicate 
with the condenser, that instrument becomes imme- 
diately charged with negative electricity. Thus it 
appears that the outside of the flame of hydrogen gas 
is always charged with positive electricity, and the 
inside with negative electricity. It follows from this 
that there is a layer of the flame where the electricity 
is invisible. Accordingly, if we regulate the coil in 
such a manner that it penetrates nearly one-half into 
the bright part of the flame, all electrical indications 
disappear. 

" From these experiments, it appears that the elec- 
tricity evolved during the combustion of hydrogen is 
quite similar to what appears during the combustion 
of charcoal. The oxygen, before it enters into com- 
bination, is charged with positive, and the h}-drogen 
with .negative, electricity. Oxygen, then, must part 
with positive electricity when it combines with hydro- 
gen, and hydrogen must part with negative electricity 
when it combines with ox}'gcn. 

** If, instead of making the lu'drogen gas flow out 



112 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

of a glass tube, we make it flow out by a tube of 
metal which does not communicate with the ground, 
but only with the condenser, this metal tube which 
touches the hydrogen, but not the flame, always 
becomes charged with negative electricity. But if it 
communicate with the ground, it loses the negative 
electricity which it had lately carried to the condenser, 
and the product of the combustion preserves an excess 
of positive electricity. 

" If we examine at a height of a few inches above 
the vertical flame, we find both the electricities in the 
same quantity and not recomposed. For if we present 
a soldered plate of zinc and copper, the zinc plate 
attracts the negative, and the copper plate the positive 
electricity. When we go to a distance sufficiently 
great above the vertical flame, the electrical fluids can 
no longer be recognized, because they have combined 
and neutralized each other. 

" Pouillet examined the flames of alcohol, ether, 
wax, oils, fat, and many vegetable bodies which pre- 
sented the same phenomena as that of hydrogen ; 
that is to say, that a zone of air surrounding t>he 
flame was electrified plus, while the interior of the 
flame was electrified minus. All these combustions 
exhibit examples of oxygen uniting with hydrogen 
and carbon. The oxygen gives out positive electric- 
ity; while the combustible body, whether hydrogen 
or carbon, or a compound of the two, gives out nega- 
tive electricity. 

" It has been ascertained by the experiments of 
Priestly, Ingenhouz, Sennebier, Saussure, etc., that 
plants while vegetating act upon atmospherical air; 



GALVANISM. II3 

sometimes forming a great quantity of carbonic acid, 
which disengages itself insensibly, and sometimes, on 
the other hand, give out oxygen gas in a state of 
greater or less purity. Now, it appears, from the 
preceding experiments, that when carbonic acid is 
formed by combustion, it is electrified plus. This led 
M. Pouillet to suspect that the carbonic acid given out 
during the processes of vegetation would be in the 
same predicament. To determine this point, he made 
the following experiment : 

" Twelve glass capsules, about eight inches in 
diameter, were coated externally for two inches round 
the lips with a film of lac-varnish. They were 
arranged in two rows beside each other, either by 
placing them simply on a table of very dry wood, or 
by putting them on a table previously varnished by 
gum-lac. They were filled with vegetable mould, and 
were made to communicate with each other by metal- 
lic wires, which passed from the inside of the one to 
the outside of the other, going over the edges of the 
capsules. Thus the insides of the twelve capsules, 
and the soil which they contained, formed only a 
single conducting body. One of these capsules was 
placed in communication with the upper plate of a 
condenser by means of a brass wire ; while at the 
same time the under plate was in communication 
with the ground. Things being in this situation, and 
the weather very dry, a quantity of corn was sown in 
the soil contained in the capsules, and the effects wore 
watched. The laboratory was carefully shut, and 
neither fire, nor light, nor any electrified bodies were 
introduced into it. 

10* H 



1 14 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER 

" During the first two days the grains swelled, and 
the plumula issued out about the length of a line, but 
did not yet make its appearance above the surface of 
the earth. But on the third day the blade appeared 
above the surface, and began to incline to the window, 
which was not provided with shutters. Consequently 
the carbonic acid gas, which disengages itself during 
the germination of seeds, is charged with positive 
electricity, and is therefore precisely in the same state 
as the carbonic acid gas formed by combustion. 
This experiment was several times repeated with 
success. But the electricity cannot be recognized 
unless the weather be exceedingly dry, or unless we 
dry the apartment artificially by introducing substances 
which have the property of absorbing moisture. 

" These capsules being insulated, and the air being 
very dry, and the soil so dry that it is an imperfect 
conductor, it is evident that the electricity would be 
retained. Accordingly, when the condenser was 
brought into a natural state after one observation, 
and if it was then replaced for experiment only during 
one second, it was found to be charged with elec- 
tricity. 

" It is obvious enough that the gaseous fluids given 
out by plants during the process of vegetation, being 
charged with electricity, must contribute to furnish no 
inconsiderable portion of the electricity with which 
the atmosphere becomes loaded. No doubt the car- 
bonic acid gas evolved from animals by respiration is 
also charged with positive electricity; though it 
would be somewhat difficult to determine the point 
by actually charging a condenser, in consequence of 



GALVANISM. 115 

the moisture with which the expired air is always 
loaded." * 

Other important agencies of galvanism are described 
by Thompson, commencing on page 529 of his work 
on " Heat and Electricity," which we shall quote in 
full before proceeding to comment upon them, and to 
make them the data of certain deductions which have 
a bearing upon the settlement of the question at 
issue : 

'' The chemical effects of the voltaic battery have 
been investigated with much sagacity, and have thrown 
a flood of light upon the nature of chemical combina- 
tion. Every substance constituting the liquid conduc- 
tor interposed between the pairs of plates undergoes 
decomposition, one of its constituents being attracted 
to the positive plate, and the other to the negative. 
Suppose the liquid conductor to be water : the oxygen 
is attracted to the positive or zinc plate, which it con- 
verts into an oxide, while the other constituent, the 
hydrogen^ is attracted to the negative or copper plate. 
Hydrogen does not combine with copper. It there- 
fore makes its escape from the face of the copper 
plate in the form of hydrogen gas. When pure water 
is used, the decomposition is exceedingly slow, 
because pure water conducts electricity of low inten- 
sity very badly. If we add nitric acid to the water, 
the energy of the battery is very much increased, 
because the conducting power of the liquid is greatly 

*The reader may consult with advantage an elaborate and most 
ingenious set of experiments by Sir II. Davy, to establish his own 
views, which are inconsistent with those of rouillet, in Phil. Trans., 
1826, p. 398. 



Il6 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER, 

augmented, and because the nitric acid undergoes 
decomposition much more easily than water. In this 
case both of the consti-tuents of the liquid conductor 
undergo decomposition ; the water is reduced into its 
elements as before, and the oxygen, as before, unites 
to the zinc pfete, while the hydrogen is disengaged 
from the copperplate. The nitric acid is decomposed 
into oxygen and deutoxide of azote. The oxygen 
unites to the zinc, while the deutoxide of azote is dis- 
engaged in abundance from the copper plate. If the 
nitric acid solution used possess considerable strength, 
a good deal of heat is evolved, and the quantity of 
deutoxide of azote and hydrogen given out is very 
annoying to the experimenter. The zinc is oxidized 
and dissolved very fast, and the energy of the battery 
is soon destroyed ; because, in a very short time the 
whole nitric acid is either decomposed, or combined 
with the oxide of zinc. The liquid becomes a solu- 
tion of nitrate of zinc in water, which is, comparatively 
speaking, a bad conductor of electricity. 

" It would appear that, while the energy of the 
voltaic battery continues, two opposite currents of 
electricity pass through every stratum of liquid, in- 
terposed between every pair of plates. The negative 
electricity passes towards the copper plate, and the 
positive electricity towards the zinc plate. To form 
a conception of the way in which these currents pass, 
let us consider the conducting liquid in its simplest 
state, or consisting of water. Water is a compound 
of oxygen and hydrogen. Let us consider only a 
single row of the particles of it, lying between the 
zinc and copper plate. Let Fig. i represent oxygen, 



GALVANISM. 1 1/ 

and Fig. 2 hydrogen. A particle of water may be 
represented by the symbol J-, and a row of particles 
of water may be represented thus : 

11111111111 1 

22222222222 l"* 

The current of negative electricity seems to pass 
along the particles of oxygen, and the current of posi- 
tive electricity along the particles of hydrogen. From 
M. Pouillet's experiments, related in the last section, 
it would follow that, when oxygen and hydrogen 
combine, the former gives out positive, and the latter 
negative electricity. We may conclude from this 
that, when they become charged again with these 
respective electricities, they will separate from each 
other. The particle of oxygen next the zinc plate, 
being thus disengaged from particles of hydrogen 
with which it was united, will be attracted to the zinc 
plate, give out its electricity to it, and combine with 
it. The same thing will happen to the particle of 
hydrogen nearest the copper plate. The electricity 
constantly passing along the row of particles will 
occasion a succession of decompositions of the parti- 
cles of water. But the hydrogen in each will instantly 
combine again with the next particle of ox}'gcn in 
succession. It is not then the hydrogen which passes 
through the liquid from one plate to the other, but a 
rapid succession of decompositions ; and as the first 
particle of water has parted with its oxygen, it is 
obvious that the last particle must part with its hy- 
drogen. 

"The same explanation applies to all the decom- 
positions that take place in the liquid interposed 



1 1 8 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

between the respective pairs of zinc and copper plates. 
But it is usual to interpose between the two poles 
of the voltaic battery a vessel containing the water 
or other substance to be decomposed. A platinum 
wire Is made to pass into this liquid from each pole, 
and the series of decompositions may thus be ob- 
served. 

'* The nature of these decompositions was first 
investigated by Berzelius and Hisinger, in a paper 
published by them in Gehlen's Journal for i802.* 
They showed that a number of salts which they 
dissolved in water, and placed In contact with the two 
poles of a galvanic pile, by means of iron or silver 
wires, were decomposed, the acid being deposited 
round the positive wires, and the base round the 
negative pole, f Ammonia was also decomposed — 
azotic gas separating from the positive pole of the 
battery, and hydrogen gas from the negative pole. 
When lime-water was tried, no decomposition of the 
lime took place. 

** In the 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1807, an 
admirable paper was published by Sir Humphrey 
Davy, entitled, * On Some Chemical Agencies of 
Electricity,' containing a very minute and complete in- 
vestigation of the chemical decompositions produced 
by voltaic electricity. To perceive the full value of this 



^ Vol. i. p. 115. 

•j- The salts tried were — 
Sulphate of ammonia, 
Nitrate of ammonia, 
Muriate of ammonia. 
Phosphate of ammonia, 
Borate of ammonia. 



Prussiate of ammonia. 
Common salt, 
Nitrate of potash, 
Bisulphate of potash, 
Sulphate of potash. 
Muriate of lime. 



GALVANISM. II9 

paper, it would be requisite to have an idea of the 
previous state of our knowledge of this intricate 
subject It had been already observed that when 
two platinum wires, from the two poles of a galvanic 
pile, were plunged each into a vessel of water, and the 
two vessels united by means of wet asbestus or any 
other conducting substance, an acid appeared round 
the positive wire, and an alkali round the negative wire. 
" This alkali was said by some to be ammonia, by 
others to be soda. The acid was variously stated as 
muriatic acid, nitric acid, or even chlorine. And it 
was generally admitted that these acids and alkalies 
were generated by the galvanic action. Sir H. Davy 
demonstrated, by decisive experiments, that in these 
cases the acid and alkali were derived from the decom- 
position of some salt contained either in the water, 
or in the vessel in which the water was placed. 
Most commonly the salt decomposed was common 
salt, and he showed that agate, basalt, and various 
other stony bodies, which he used as vessels, contained 
quantities of common salt appreciable by the galvanic 
action. When the same agate cup was used in suc- 
cessive experiments, the quantity of acid and alkali 
evolved diminished each time, and at last no appreci- 
able quantity could be perceived. When glass vessels 
were used, soda was disengaged at the expense of the 
glass, which was sensibly corroded. When the water 
into which the wires were dipped was pcifoctly pure, 
and when the vesser containing it was free from every 
trace of saline matter, no acid or alkali made its 
appearance, and nothing was evolved except the two 
constituents of water — namely, oxygen and h\drogen, 



1 20 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

the oxygen appearing round the positive wire, and 
hydrogen round the negative wire. 

" When a salt was put into a vessel into which the 
positive wire was dipped, the vessel into which the 
negative wire was dipped being filled with pure water, 
and the two vessels being united by a slip of asbestus 
moistened with water, the acid of the salt made its 
appearance round the positive wire, and the alkali 
round the negative wire, before it could be detected in 
the intermediate space. But if an intermediate vessel, 
containing a substance for which the alkali has a 
strong affinity, be placed between these two vessels, 
the whole being united by slips of asbestus, then a 
great part of, or even the whole of, the alkali was 
nitrate of barytes, and sulphuric acid was placed in 
the intermediate vessel ; much sulphate of barytes 
was deposited in the intermediate vessel, and very 
little or even no barytes made its appearance round 
the negative wire. Upon this subject a most minute, 
extensive, and satisfactory series of experiments was 
made by Davy, having no doubt whatever respecting 
the accuracy of the general fact. Indeed this paper 
of Sir H. Davy constitutes one of the most important 
contributions ever made to scientific chemistry, and 
threw a ray of light upon the chemical affinity, which 
may ultimately produce the most important con- 
sequences. 

" The conclusions drawn by Davy from his experi- 
ments are, that all substances which have a chemical 
affinity for. each other are in opposite states of elec- 
tricity, and that the degree of affinity is proportional 
to the intensity of these opposite states. When such 



GALVANISM. 121 

a compound body is placed in contact with the two 
poles of a galvanic battery, the positive pole attracts 
that constituent which is negative, and repels the 
positive. The negative pole acts in the opposite 
way, attracting the positive constituent, and repelling 
the negative. The more powerful the battery, the 
greater is the force of these attractions and repulsions. 
We may, therefore, merely by increasing the energy 
of the battery sufficiently, enable it to decompose any 
compound whatever. Oxygen, chlorine, bromine, 
iodine, and acids, being negative bodies, are attracted 
to the positive pole ; while hydrogen, alkalies, earths, 
oxides, metals, and bases of all kinds, being positive, 
are attracted to the negative pole.'"^ 

" Such are the electrical and such the chemical 
phenomena produced by the voltaic battery." 

This lecture has been extended beyond due bounds, 
because we wished to present the interesting quota- 
tions we have made, in one view, and without division. 
To the next we shall defer their rigid examination. 
They are in part correct and partly false, as we shall 
endeavor to show in the next, and shall make those 
facts, about which there can be no mistake, subservient 
to the purposes for which these lectures are published. 

* If this view of the subject, wliich is probably more conformable to 
truth than the view of Pouillet given on page 497. of his work, be 
admitted, it will be necessary to modify the explanation of the way in 
which the electrical currents pass, given on page 531. If oxygen be 
negative, and hydrogen positive, it is obvious that the positive current 
will be attracted to the oxygen and must pass through the hydrogen. 
These currents, by neutralizing the electricity in both bodies, will occa- 
sion the separation of the oxygen and hydrogen, and produce the 
decompositions referred to on page 531. 
II 



LECTURE VI. 

GALVANISM. — Continued. 
The Changes in Organic and Inorganic Matter. 

THE present lecture will be devoted to the appli- 
cation of those facts and principles of galvanism 
which have been ascertained by our own observations, 
and those of others, to the further demonstration of 
the peculiarities of the theory we have assumed. 

Upon the subject of the intimate connection which 
exists between electricity and the chemical changes 
which are wrought in various substances, we quoted 
largely in our former lecture — • not because we could 
not have given those ideas in our own language, and 
thus have appeared to have written original thoughts, 
but because we wished to insert the facts collocated 
by an author so eminent as Thompson, the regius 
professor of chemistry in the University of Glasgow, 
Scotland, in his own language, so that, for minds that 
demand the authority of great names, we might have 
a convenient reference in the body of this work, 
reserving to ourself, however, at the same time, the 
privilege v/hich we shall ever claim and exercise, of 
drawing our own conclusions from those facts furnished 
as the data of our reasonings. 

The visible and probably invisible universe is nothing 



GALVANISM, 1 23 

more nor less than one vast laboratory, in which 
chemical changes are continually progressing in an 
infinite variety of forms and modifications. The 
green mantle of vegetation, which clothes the earth 
in its beautiful summer vestments, receives its fresh- 
ness, color, nourishment, and increase from the air 
and the elementary substances of the soil at its root, 
by means of a chemical change. The tree of the 
forest first germinates, next becomes a little delicate 
twig; further on in its progress we find it a pliant 
sapling, then it shoots upward with luxuriant, spread- 
ing branches, and downward with a firmer and deeper 
root, and becomes, at length, a stately monarch of the 
woodland, stubborn and unyielding to the wintry blast. 
All this progression is effected solely by a chemical 
change, which transforms the nutriment of the air 
and soil into wood. Even the solid rock has its 
infancy, its manhood, and its old age. It begins to 
grow, increases in solidification and cohesive power, 
comes to maturity, decays and crumbles again to a 
substance possessing no power of cohesive attraction 
at all. All this, too, is effected by the potent agency 
of a continued chemical change. Even a pearly drop 
of water, embedded in the deep bosom of the moun- 
tains, may harden by chemical agencies, and in pro- 
cess of time, perhaps, form the sparkling diamond. 

Now, we assume that it is a proposition capable of 
rational, abundant, and satisfactory proof, tliat every 
one of these chemical changes is wrought by the 
resistless influences of electricity, or the light and 
caloric of the sun, as it falls upon and pcrwides the 
whole material of the earth, for this light and caloric 



1 24 A NEW PHIL O SOPHY OF MA TTER, 

of the sun are the same thing, in fact, as electricity, 
which we hope abundantly to demonstrate in its 
proper place. 

That reasoning or superstructure of argumentation 
which is built upon the immovable basis of self-evident 
propositions cannot be overthrown by counter-argu- 
mentation. It is perfectly impregnable. It is founded 
in the inherent nature and fitness of things, which 
change not, while all else in creation changes. 

Upon just such propositions we intend to build 
the superstructure of our argument, in proof of the 
assumed position that all the chemical changes are 
wrought by the direct agency of electricity. 

The laws which govern nature are uniform. There 
is no clashing among them. Were there any, the 
universe of material systems would exhibit one terrific 
scene of uproar, confusion, anarchy, and chaos. The 
proposition that " like causes produce like effects " is 
self-evident. It cannot be made any plainer to a sane 
mind by any process of reasoning. 

We will now condense into as brief a space as is 
consistent with a lucid perspicuity the substance of 
the quotations of the last lecture, correct what is 
erroneous, and then make such deductions and draw 
such conclusions as the undeniable facts in the case 
will warrant. This is the substance : 

Bodies in opposite chemical states — that is, bodies 
which have a strong affinity for each other — are in 
opposite electrical states ; the elements of all bodies 
or substances which can be decomposed by electricity 
are either positive or negative ; evaporation does not 
evolve electricity: it is, however, produced by the 



GALVANISM. 1 25 

combustion of charcoal, hydrogen gas, and other 
bodies, and also by vegetation. 

The constituent principles of bodies go to the 
different poles of a galvanic battery, and by the 
influence of the electric agent water is separated into 
its elements of oxygen and hydrogen gas, the first 
of which is negative, and the last is positive. 

This is the substance, in brief, of those quotations. 
With the first fact which they develop, we agree per- 
fectly. The acids are all negative, and the alkalies 
are all positive. When brought in contact in the form 
of solution, a chemical union takes place, by the force 
of the affinity or the chemical attraction which exists 
between the two substances. That affinity or chem- 
ical attraction which brings the two bodies together, 
and effects their union into a new compound, depends 
entirely upon the different ingredients which compose 
that new compound. The alkali is plus br positive, 
because, as we have before shown, it is surcharged 
with more than a natural share of electricity. That 
electricity is arranged, therefore, with the positive 
polarity of its ultimate particles outward, as in all 
surcharged bodies, which emanation outward, as we 
have demonstrated by the test of infallible experiment, 
constitutes it an alkali, and gives it an alkaline taste. 
The acid is minus or negative, owing to its destitution 
of electricity, which destitution gives, as we have 
elsewhere abundantly shown, a different arrangement 
to the ultimate particles of the electric agent, by which 
arrangement, as in all minus or negative bodies, the 
negative polarity is presented, which constitutes any 
substance an acid or gives it its acid taste. Let no 



126 A NEW PHIL OSOPH V OF MA TTER. 

one suppose that this is a mere fanciful hypothesis; 
for we have already demonstrated that it depends 
upon an inherent organic law of electricity, by an ex- 
periment with the galvanic battery, by which it is 
shown, that if a current be i7i at the tongue and out 
of the finger, where one pole is brought in contact 
with the one, and the other with the other, it has an 
acid taste, and if in at the finger and out of the tongue, 
a strong alkaline taste, proving beyond contradiction 
that an acid and an alkaline taste depend upon the 
electrical condition, instead of the condition of inert 
matter merely, without regard to its electrical state. 

This suggests the thought, which philosophers 
would do well to investigate, whether all tastes, and 
every shade of taste in ponderable substances, do 
not depend upon the different modification, or rather 
the different proportions of the admixture of these 
two fundamental and essential tastes, rather than 
upon any inherent organic quality in mere inert matter 
itself Reasoning from the admirable uniformity of 
nature's laws, but without having time, in connection 
with this work, to demonstrate it, we should draw the 
confident conclusion that it did. If electricity con- 
stitutes an alkaline and an acid taste, why not, with 
the same propriety, the sweet, the bitter, and every 
other possible shade of taste, simply by^the different 
electric states of bodies ? That it does, we beheve 
could be demonstrated by deductions based upon 
the self-evident proposition " that like causes produce 
like effects." 

There cannot be any mistake about the electric 
states of the alkalies and the acids. The testimony 



GALVANISM. 12/ 

of experiment is uniform. The one is always plus, 
and the other minus, and the degrees of their plus 
and minus depend upon their concentration. Being 
plus and minus, they unite when brought together. 
That union exhibits force, and is attended with the 
violent commotion of a rapid effervescence, as is famil- 
iar to all in the union of tartaric acid and soda. Now, 
what is that principle of affinity which causes the 
tartaric acid and soda to unite ? Is it anything inhe- 
rent in the mere particles of inert matter themselves 
which constitute the soda and tartaric acid ? We 
think not. Upon conclusions drawn legitimately 
from all analogy we predicate this opinion. Let us 
examine mere ponderable matter as critically and 
minutely as we may, and the conviction will be forci- 
bly impressed upon the mind, that it has no such in- 
herent energy — no such self-moving power as to 
produce a commotion among the ultimate particles of 
which it is composed so violent as that which occurs 
when they unite with each other during effervescence. 
What, then, is that principle of affinity which brings 
them together, if it be not some inherent power 
belonging to the particles themselves ? It is, without 
doubt, electricity, for it seems to have a sort of mys- 
terious, indefinable, but yet positive ability to take 
hold of the particles of ponderable matter, as it were 
with a tenacious grasp, and, by its own unaided 
energy, control their movements. We see not how 
else they are brought into union. But if this bo the 
controlling agent which effects the work, then the 
process by which the union is accomplished is per- 
fectly plain. There is no incomprehensibility about 



128 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

it, except what exists in the essential nature and 
qualities of the wondrous agent itself. The one sub- 
stance is surcharged, because positive, and the other 
deficient, because negative. There is, then, upon 
principles which have been already abundantly ex- 
plained, an attraction between the opposite polarities 
of the electric principle, by which a plus and a minus 
are drawn together. Having, as we have before 
remarked, a hold, by some mysterious organic law of 
its essential constitution, beyond the ken of chemical 
analysis or investigation, upon the particles of ponder- 
able matter, they are attracted along with it, and are 
thus brought, as we have seen, into a chemical union, 
and a chemical change is produced. This chemical 
union and change are nothing more nor less than the 
simple equalization of a plus and a minus in substances, 
and by that equalization a single compound substance 
is formed, very different in the properties of its combi- 
nation from either of the two out of which it was 
formed. And why ? Simply because it is in a different 
electrical state. This simple compound, we say, is 
very different from the two out of which it was formed, 
in all the properties of its combination; for this is abun- 
dantly proven by the fact that a virulent poison may 
be made harmless by a chemical union, and harmless 
substances be also made virulent poisons by the same 
chemical union or chemical change. This is done, in 
all cases, by simply changing their electrical state, 
which state can be varied by an almost infinite variety 
of shades and modifications, constituting color, tastes, 
motion, poisons, antidotes against poisons, and every 
other property and quality, which is manifested in 



GALVANISM. 1 29 

matter, except its bulk, ponderosity, and inherent 
inertness. 

Upon deductions built upon fact and experiment, 
we believe this to be the true theory of all chemical 
changes in matter. Those changes are effected 
through the sole agency of electricity. The modus 
operandi of such changes may, it is true, be, in a meas- 
ure, hidden sometimes from the inspection of the most 
acute, and may not, in a vast multitude of instances, 
be perfectly apparent ; but still abstruseness does not 
at all affect the reality of that agency. If it can be 
proven beyond controversy, and beyond the shadow 
of a reasonable doubt, as it certainly can, that such 
changes have been affected by such agencies, then it 
is logical to draw an inference, from that self-evident 
proposition, that " like causes produce like effects," 
that other changes, whose cause is more obscure from 
certain circumstances that may surround them, are 
produced by the same agencies, in accordance with 
the same laws. 

In the quotations which we have made in a former 
lecture, it will be recollected that Sir Humphrey Davy 
drew the conclusion, from a great variety of experi- 
ments, conducted with the utmost care, that all sub- 
stances which have a chemical affinity for each other 
are uniformly in opposite states of electricity, and 
that the degree of affinity is exactly proportional to 
the intensity of those opposite states. Now, if all 
substances, according to the test of Sir Humphrey 
Davy's experiments, which have a chemical affinity, 
are in opposite electrical states, is not the union, 
which is effected by moans of that affinity, effected 

I 



130 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

simply, as we have shown, by the attractions of a 
positive and negative, since the laws of nature are 
uniform, and since " like causes produce like effects " ? 
Or, in other words, that that chemical affinity which 
exists between all substances, which will unite, is 
nothing more nor less than electrical attraction. 

There are two ways in which mathematicians prove 
the truth of their calculations to a demonstrative 
certainty. The one is by a direct, and the other is by 
an inverse process of deduction. In the first, by a 
certain process of calculation or reasoning they arrive 
at a certain result, and in the other, by taking that 
result for their premises, and by reasoning or calcu- 
lating backward, they determine whether that process 
of deduction, by which they arrive at that result, is, 
every step of it, correct. By just such a plan of pro- 
cedure, we can determine the correctness of our pre- 
vious chain of argument, respecting the phenomena 
of chemical union. We have, by a process of direct 
reasoning from cause to effect, come to certain con- 
clusions. We will now, by an inverse process of 
argumentation from effect to cause, prove whether 
there be any flaws or broken links in that chain. We 
have demonstrated, by an allusion to facts with which 
all are perfectly familiar, that the alkalies and the 
acids will unite by the influence of chemical attraction 
or of electrical attraction, which is the same thing. 
Now, if we can show that these can be separated 
again, particle from particle, by the same agent that 
produces their union, then we, by inverse reasoning 
from effect to cause, prove, beyond the possibility of 
mistake, that electricity is the efficient agent in the 



GAL VANISM, 1 3 I 

production of all chemical changes. And this has 
already been shown in the record of certain experi- 
ments contained in the quotations of the lastjecture. 

It will be recollected by those who read the former 
lecture carefully that, by the experiments of Berzelius 
and Hisinger, with a galvanic battery, as described by 
them in 1802, in Gehlen's Journal, various salts in. 
solution were separated or decomposed, and the acid 
of the solution was deposited around the positive pole, 
and the base or alkali around the negative pole, in 
accordance with an immutable chemical law of the 
attraction of unlike polarities. 

The experiments of Sir Humphrey Davy abun- 
dantly confirm those of Berzelius and Hisinger. He 
found that, by increasing the energy of his battery 
sufficiently, and with appropriate apparatus for the 
purpose, he could decompose any compound body 
whatever, the negatives in all cases collecting around 
the positive pole, and the positives around the nega- 
tive pole, thus proving that the electric agent will 
separate compounds as well as form them, which we 
have heretofore proved. 

A question may here arise as to the correctness of 
our theory upon the subject of ponderable matter. 
We have assumed that it is a simple essential principle, 
and that all its infinite variety of modifications of 
every kind is caused alone by the imponderable prin- 
ciple, which controls and arranges all its particles as 
we find them arranged. 

Now, this may be denied, from the fict tievelopcd 
by the experiments of the before-montionoel chemists, 
that one ingredient of a compound in solution goes 



132 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER, 

to one pole of a galvanic battery, and the other to the 
other pole. It may, from this fact, and with great 
seeming plausibility, be argued that the two ingre- 
dients, which go to opposite poles, called alkalies and 
acids, must be matter inherently different from each 
other, and that, on account of that inherent difference, 
the separation takes place. Such an inference, how- 
ever, does not necessarily result from the premises. 
It can, in fact, be shown to be erroneous. It is not 
separated into constituent ingredients by any repul- 
sive force which exists within it inherently, because, 
if such repulsive inherent force did actually exist, the 
acids and the alkalies would not, under other circum- 
stances, exhibit an attractive affinity at all, but would 
forever, and under every possible variety of conditions, 
exhibit the same stubborn repulsive power, and, 
therefore, never amalgamate, as they do, when a new 
compound is formed, by the effervescence of tartaric 
acid and soda. 

This fact, that repulsion takes place under one set 
of circumstances, and attraction under another, speaks 
volumes in favor of the validity and truth of the prop- 
osition that the alkalies and acids are united as in 
solution, and separated again, as in the galvanic 
experiment, entirely in both cases by the force of 
electricity exerted over their particles. This must, in 
reality, amount to a demonstration, in the view of 
every mind acutely philosophic. 

*' But," says the inquirer after true science, " there 
must be something inherently different in the nature 
of the particles of the alkalies and the acids them- 
selves, or else the positive pole of the battery would 



GALVANISM. 133 

not attract the acid, nor the negative the alkali, but 
they would move indiscriminately either way, and 
not be decomposed at all." This assertion, however, 
is predicated upon the supposition that a particle that 
was alkaline before being compounded by a chemical 
union, is also alkaline when separated'by the energy 
of the galvanic battery. But, at the risk of differing 
with the whole body of chemists, we shall affirm that 
this by no means follows as a necessary consequence. 
It certainly can, with great plausibility, at least, be 
made a question, whether particles may not move 
indiscriminately to either pole, and there, by the pecu- 
liar influences which we know the two opposite poles 
of a galvanic battery exert over substances in contact 
with them, and which are confessedly very mysterious, 
be made either alkaline or acid by that contact. This 
supposition we know would do violence to the preju- 
dices and prepossessions of many scholars. But why 
should it ? Does not electricity evidently demonstrate 
that, within its own inherent organic nature, is laid 
alone the basis of the alkalies and the acids, by the 
experiment upon the tongue with the inward and the 
outward current of a galvanic battery? This will not 
be denied, and cannot be, for " facts are stubborn 
things," which cannot be gainsaid nor resisted. 
Are they not, also, as we have abundantly shown, 
both decomposed and recomposcd, and therefore 
controlled by the electric agent, which would not and 
could not be the case if the two apparently opposite 
ingredients, which form the compound, were inherently 
different in their own organic nature, independent oi. 
the influence of imponderable matter ? IMost certainly. 



134 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

For they would never thus separate and unite again, 
did the force, which controls these opposing move- 
ments, reside within themselves. Besides, it is a fact 
revealed by both the researches of geology and the 
experiments of chemistry, that the very same sub- 
stance, or mass of substances, yea, the very identical 
ultimate particles of a substance, may change their 
nature from age to age, by chemical processes wrought 
upon them. 

A substance, for instance, may have been animated 
flesh and bones, as in the mighty army of Xerxes, 
when he invaded Greece, That army, having been 
mowed down upon the battle-field by the victorious 
invader, may have mingled with the soil upon which 
they fell, and, by their putrid blood and flesh and 
crumbling bones, have made the soil luxuriant. Out 
of it may have shot up a forest upon the desolated 
waste, and this flesh and blood and bones have been 
reformed into a grove of stately trees. These trees, 
in the revolutions of time, may have been swept away 
and buried by a deluge. There, within the bosom of 
the earth, they may have undergone another change, 
and have been reformed either into solid rock, or 
beds of bituminous coal, to become the subjects of 
still further and equally remarkable transformations, 
being burned and resolved into vapors, gases, ashes, 
and electricity, and prepared to enter, in this state, 
into the composition of an almost endless variety of 
other substances. This supposition, which we have 
made for the sake of illustration, is no fanciful chimera 
of the brain, but well-authenticated reality.^ 

Geology and chemistry prove that such transforma- 



GALVANISM. 1 35 

tions have been occurring in all ages, and that they 
are contiriually occurring at the present time. And 
lest it should be said, for the purpose of weakening 
or attempting to invalidate our argument, that such 
transformations are never made of a substance, except 
the new formation be of the same nature as the old 
one out of which the new was organized, and that a 
combustible furnishes the material for a new combus- 
tible formation — as wood and other vegetable matter, 
for instance, form bituminous coal — we would reply 
that such an assumption is proven false entirely, by 
the transformation of wood into that kind of stone 
of the hardest and finest quality which is called " the 
hone," by depositing the wood a few years in one of 
the lakes of Ireland. 

We might extend our remarks upon the subject of 
the chemical changes of the character spoken of, until 
they should fill volumes, for they are almost infinite 
in variety. But sufficient has been already said to 
prove to a demonstration, from the data of incontro- 
vertible facts, that the forces by which chemical 
changes are wrought in ponderable matter do not 
reside inherently in the substances themselves, or 
belong to their organic nature ; for if they did thus 
reside, we hold it to be a proposition capable of the 
clearest and most logical demonstration, that no such 
transformation of substances could ever possibly 
occur, but there would then be one changeless, 
unvaried scene, where now all is variety and ceaseless 
mutation. 

We now leave this branch o{ our subject, with the 
feeling, however, that much more might be said, had 



136 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

we time and space, and that what we have said might 
have been vastly more appropriate, had we the ability 
of some, to whose attainments we presume not to 
aspire. In a subject as abstruse as that of the principle 
of chemical affinities, it must be expected that very 
many things will be passed over without being made 
perfectly plain and intelligible to all. Our object has 
been mainly to seize upon strong positions of lucid 
proof, where there could be no mistake or deception 
in our reasonings, or evasion of their propriety by 
others, and then from such strong positions draw- 
reasonable and logical inferences respecting subjects 
more abstruse and difficult. 

The electrical condition of oxygen and hydrogen 
gas — and more particularly of oxygen — we shall 
now consider minutely, because it is, as we shall show, 
the most essential agent in chemical changes that 
exists. 

There are, in the quotations which we made in the 
last lecture, two clashing theories respecting the 
relative electrical state of those two gases. 

M. Pouillet, a distinguished chemist, by a variety 
of experiments, very carefully conducted, as we have 
seen in the quotations of the last lecture, came to the 
conclusion that oxygen gas was positive and hydrogen 
negative. 

Sir Humphrey Davy, on the contrary, from the test 
of experiment, came to the conclusion in the same 
quotations that oxygen is negative and hydrogen 
positive. 

With this opinion of Davy, Mr. Thompson, who 
collocated the testimony of the two, and from whose 



GAL VANISH. 1 3/ 

valuable work we made the extracts, seems to coin- 
cide. 

Now, when such men of deep and careful research, 
and critical intellectual acumen as Pouillet, Davy, and 
Thompson disagree, and take positions directly op- 
posed to each other, what shall we do to determine 
which is right and which is wrong, for right both 
certainly cannot be ? Why, examine critically the 
positions of each, according to the best light we have, 
and endeavor, if possible, to ascertain where the en^or 
lies. 

The first subject of investigation is oxygen, which, 
as -we said before, is a very essential agent in the 
chemical changes which are continually occurring 
throughout nature. 

This gas was discovered by Dr. Priestly, in 1 744. 
There have, since its discovery, been given several 
appellations, indicative of its nature. Priestly called 
it dephlogisticated air. It was called empyreal air 
by Scheele, and vital air by Condorcet. Lavoisier 
gave it the name which it now bears, derived from 
two Greek words, which signify to generate acid^ 
from its being considered by him the sole cause of 
acidity. 

This gas is colorless, has neither taste nor smell, is 
heavier than atmospheric air, has not, by any experi- 
ment hitherto made, been decomposed, is a non- 
conductor of electricity, emits both light and heat 
by the force of sudden compression, and, according 
to the opinion of some, is the most negative electric 
in existence, alwa)'s appearing at the positive pole 
when any compound which contains it is exposed to 



138 A NEW PHIL O SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

the action of galvanism, which opinion we shall, 
however, endeavor to show is entirely unfounded. 

Oxygen has a very powerful affinity or attraction 
for most simple substances, and, indeed, it may be 
made to combine with all. By such combination, 
it oxidizes or corrodes the metals, which oxidation 
is a species of combustion. It is also the sustain- 
ing principle of fire; for the sole reason why fuel 
burns freely in the open air, or is smothered by 
cutting off its communication with the atmosphere, 
is because, in the one case, its ignition is sustained 
by its affinity for oxygen, which it attracts from the 
air, and in the other it is deprived of an appropriate 
supply to produce the chemical change of vegetable 
oxidation. 

All substances which will burn in the open air will 
deflagrate much more rapidly and brilliantly in oxygen. 
If there be the least perceptible spark, for instance, 
upon a piece of wood, it will instantly burst into a 
fierce blaze when inserted in a jar of this gas. And 
even steel and iron will burn with rapid and intense 
brilliancy when thus inserted. The moment, how- 
ever, that the oxygen is exhausted by chemical com- 
bination with the burning body, the ignition ceases, 
although the substance may not have been entirely 
consumed. 

There are other interesting phenomena still, which 
will illustrate the nature of oxygen gas. It seems to 
be an absolutely essential agent in respiration. No 
animal can live by inhaling an atmosphere which does 
not contain a certain portion of oxygen, uncombined 
with other substances ; for he will die very soon if 



GALVANISM. 139 

forced to breathe the air out of which the oxygen has 
been entirely extracted. If a hghted candle or taper 
be immersed in it, its flames will be extinguished. 
Respiration and combustion therefore require the 
presence of the same sustaining agent. An animal 
cannot live in an atmosphere which is unable to 
support combustion ; nor, in general, can a candle 
burn in air which contains too little oxygen for 
respiration. 

There is another singular property about oxygen. 
Although a certain portion of it is absolutely neces- 
sary to sustain respiration, yet an unmixed atmosphere 
of pure oxygen is as fatal to life as its destitution, 
though not so speedy in its effects. " When an animal, 
as a rabbit for instance, is supplied with such an atmos- 
phere, no inconvenience is at first perceived, but, after 
an interval of an hour or more, the circulation and 
respiration become very rapid, and the system in 
general highly excited ; symptoms of debility sub- 
sequently ensue, followed by insensibility, and death 
occurs in six, ten, or twelve hours. On examination 
after death, the blood is found highly florid in every 
part of the body, and the heart acts strongly even 
after the breathing has ceased." 

From the facts described above, these are the influ- 
ences, in substance, of oxygen gas. It is the prime 
agent of the oxidation of all metals, the great sup- 
porter of combustion, and gives vitality, warmth, and 
purity to the blood, as it circulates through the sys- 
tem. 

Now, arc these the influences of a negatively elec- 
trified body? Will a substance which is minus aid 



1 40 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

in sustaining flame, while one that is plus puts it out? 
Is there anything in the inherent nature of positive 
electricity to produce such a result? Is it either a 
principle of cold or dampness, that it should extin- 
guish fire or chill the blood during respiration ? It 
seems to us that any one who understands the nature 
of the electric agent can be at no loss for a ready 
answer. Even plain, unlettered common sense, could 
hardly fail of coming to a correct conclusion. Such 
properties as belong inherently to oxygen gas, and 
such agencies as it exhibits, beyond controversy or 
the possibility of mistake, in contact with various 
substances, are entirely inconsistent with the proper- 
ties and the agencies which we know belong to nega- 
tive bodies. Carbonic acid gas, for instance, is a 
negative body. Does it sustain combustion or respi- 
ration, as, reasoning from analogy, we should suppose 
it would ? No ; but its influences are directly the 
reverse of those ascribed to oxygen gas. Instead of 
sustaining the ignition of fuel, it immediately extin- 
guishes flame, and instantaneously stops respiration, 
instead of promoting it. Now, if the maxim, that 
"like causes produce like effects," be a self-evident 
proposition, as it doubtless is, can oxygen gas and 
carbonic acid gas be both negative bodies, when the 
inherent properties and agencies of the one are directly 
the antipodes of the other? The conclusion that they 
are, must, it appears to us, be considered, when viewed 
in the light either of sound logic or unlettered common 
sense, as preposterous in the extreme. The fact is 
Pouillet was right, and Davy and Thompson, his 
opponents in theory, were wrong. Oxygen gas is 



GAL VANISH. I4I 

positive, for no agent can exhibit the same influences 
without being positive, if there be any certainty at all 
in the source of our chemical knowledge. 

The further discussion, however, of this interesting 
and important subject must be deferred to the next 
lecture, where we hope, by an array of facts and 
arguments, to prove conclusively that oxygen gas is 
positive, and also satisfactorily reconcile those phe- 
nomena with this theory, where it may seem to be 
negative. 



LECTURE VII. 

OXYGEN AND HYDROGEN. 

THIS lecture will be a continuation of the descrip- 
tion of those facts connected with electricity 
which have been developed by galvanism, and by 
experiments in other departments of chemistry, as 
well as an examination and exposure of falsities in 
theory. 

The first subject of attention and remarkwill.be 
oxygen gas. We have already, in a former lecture, 
described some of its most essential agencies, and 
endeavored to show, by conclusions drawn from both 
reason and analogy, that those agencies were entirely 
inconsistent with the idea of a negative body, for we 
could not see what principle there was in mere nega- 
tive electricity, or a mere absence of it, to support 
combustion, so as even to make iron and steel defla- 
grate with intense brilliancy, or how it should, as we 
shall endeavor to prove that it does, impart vitality 
and warmth to the blood, supply fuel for that steam- 
engine of organic Hfe, the heart, and enable it to pro- 
pel the purple current with such force through all the 
channels made for its circulation through the system. 
As the opinions of Davy and Thompson upon this 
subject were, beyond the shadow of a reasonable 
doubt, incorrect, and as they clashed with the conclu- 

143 



ox YGEN AND H YDR O GEN. 143 

sions to which Pouillet came, by experiments equally 
cautious and critical, it may be well to examine the 
premises from which they drew their conclusions, 
and see if they have not mistaken them in some very 
essential matters. 

By a reference to a record of their experiments, it 
will be perceived that the foundation of their mistake 
might have been in the supposition that certain phe- 
nomena, attending the decomposition of unmixed 
water, and of salts of various kinds in solution, with 
the galvanic battery, must be precisely analogous. 
They had ascertained that, in such decompositions, 
by the action of galvanism, chlorine, bromine, iodine, 
and acids were attracted to the positive pole, while 
the alkalies, earths, oxides, metals, and bases of all 
kinds were attracted to the negative pole. By means 
of the delicate test of the condenser, they had ascer- 
tained that the first class of substances enumerated 
were negative, and the other positive, and that the 
chlorine, bromine, iodine, and acids were attracted to 
the positive pole by the mutual attraction of what, 
according to their theory, they considered unlike 
electricities, but which we consider unlike polarities 
of one agent, and that the alkalies, earths, oxides, 
metals, and bases were attracted to the negative pole 
by the operation of the same law. By like experi- 
ments, they also ascertained that oxygen gas was 
attracted to the positive pole with just as much cer- 
tainty and uniformity as the acids, or an)- other bodies 
of the most negative character, and that the other 
constituent of water, the h)'drogcn gas, with as much 
certainty and uniformity was attracted to the negative 



1 44 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

pole, like the alkalies or the most positive bodies. 
They therefore concluded, and very plausibly too, that 
oxygen was negative, and the hydrogen positive, 
since they obeyed the same law precisely as other 
positive and negative substances. 

In such a plausible conclusion consists their error, 
if in error they really were, and that they were is 
perfectly evident, since the agencies of oxygen gas 
are different from those of any known negative, and 
just such as we should, at a glance, conclude were 
positive. 

But, if we deny the correctness of their conclusions, 
we are bound to show, if possible, wherein that error 
consists. This, we are aware, will be very difficult to 
do to the satisfaction of those who may have stubborn 
prepossessions to overcome. Yet we by no means 
despair of convincing even those, except there be 
some among them who consider great names a suffi- 
cient demonstration of the truth of a proposition which 
they may advocate, no matter how lame may be their 
arguments, nor how contrary to fact their reasonings. 

If oxygen gas be positive, why does it disobey that 
law which, as we have seen, regulates all positive sub- 
stances, and go to the positive pole, instead of going 
to the negative, as they all do ? Simply because it is 
a cause instead of an effect^ as in the other cases 
alluded to. It is electricity, instead of an effect merely 
of electricity. 

The acids, being negative, move to the positive pole, 
because opposite polarities, according to the inherent 
laws of opposite polarities, bring them there. But 
oxygen rises from the positive pole for another reason, 



OXYGEN AND HYDROGEN. I45 

essentially different. It is constituted by the positive 
current itself, instead of being collected and constituted 
by any mere effect of that current, and rises, therefore, 
from its own pole, instead of moving to the negative 
pole, and there rising. This we conceive to be the 
only rational and plausible, and indeed the only possi- 
ble reason why oxygen, if positive, is uniformly found 
at the positive pole of the battery, while all negatives 
move there according to the laws of electrical attrac- 
tion ; for, unless it be, as we have assumed, electricity 
itself, instead of any effect merely, no reason could be 
assigned for its moving to that pole, except it were 
negative, which, as we have already shown, cannot, in 
accordance with the uniformity of nature's laws, be 
correct. 

" But," says the objector to this proposition, " elec- 
tricity, or galvanism, is an imponderable principle, 
which exhibits no perceptible weight at all, but oxy^ 
gen gas is a substance, more dense than most gases, 
and heavier even than atmospheric air." 

That we acknowledge is true. It is heavier than 
the atmosphere, and electricity exhibits no weight at 
all that can be detected by the very nicest and minutest 
balances. But does this disprove our solution of this 
apparent anomaly? By no means. It may contain 
the plus current of the battery, which, however, in its 
action upon the water, collects to itself certain weighty 
constituents of that water, which it forms into the 
vehicle or medium in which it is borne, the same as 
vapor, which is an association of mere vesicles, formed 
of certain constituents of water, enclosing caloric, the 
generating agent, which, by the way, will illustrate 
13 K 



1 46 A NE W PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

the formation of pxygen gas. During the generation 
of vapor by caloric, no positive electric effects are 
perceptible, according to the testimony of M. Pouillet 
and Thompson. In this case, caloric is the cause of 
the vapor, arranging for particular use the watery con- 
stituents of the vesicle in which it encases itself, and 
becoming invisible and imperceptible during that en- 
casement. When, however, by the proximity of any 
chemical attractions or affinities which call it forth 
from its encasement into visibility, and make it burst 
the vaporous vesicle which it had formed for itself, 
it then exhibits the phenomena of positive electricity 
distinctly and strongly m.arked, as we shall abundantly 
show when we come to the cause of the nimbification 
and electrical discharges of the storm-cloud. 

Now, what caloric does for itself, in the formation 
of its vaporous vesicle, we consider that the positive 
current of the galvanic battery does for itself in the 
formation of an encasement for itself, out of certain 
dense and weighty ingredients of the water — which 
cause, together with its encasement, constitutes that 
heavy, invisible, vaporous air which we call oxygen 
gas. 

While thus encased, its positive properties, like the 
creating agent of the vapor of water, are imperceptible, 
and are never revealed, except when certain strong 
chemical affinities or attractions call it forth from its 
imperceptibility, and make it burst asunder the encase- 
ment in which it had hidden itself, and show the re- 
sistless energies of its nature. 

In this way, and in this alone, it seems to us, can 
the appearance of the positive oxygen at the positive 



OXYGEN AND HYDROGEN. I47 

pole of the battery be accounted for, when all other 
positive substances go to the negative pole. It is a 
cause rather than a result. It is positive or plus elec- 
tricity, so encased as we have described, rather than 
any effect in the same sense, as the collection of an 
acid around the positive wire can be considered an 
effect. 

Oxygen gas has, ever since its discovery by Priestly, 
been considered a simple substance, and been thus 
classified. But the reason of this is, because no 
chemist has yet been able to decompose it, and 
demonstrate that it is a compound. There can, how- 
ever, be no doubt as to its being a compound body, 
if electricity, in combination with certain ingredients 
of ponderable matter, can be called a compound body. 
This is proven by the fact that, although chemists 
have not been so fortunate as to succeed in decom- 
posing it, it has been decomposed, and is continually 
undergoing a process of decomposition in that natural 
chemical laboratory — far more perfect than any 
artificial one possibly can be — the lungs, as we shall 
show abundantly in another connection. 

Now, the reason why chemists have not succeeded 
in decomposing this agent, and resolving it into its 
elements, is, we presume, owing to the fact that the 
essential or causating principle is so very subtle that 
it cannot be controlled, and so very powerful that i'ts 
attractions for its encasement resist all the counter- 
attractions which chemists have arrayed around it. 

Hydrogen gas, which is the opposite of oxygen, 
will now be briefly examined for a little while, and 
afterwards we shall remark upon some influences 



148 A NE W PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER, 

of both in connection, which will further illustrate 
this subject. 

This gas was formerly called inflammable air, from 
its supposed combustibility, and phlogistojt, from the 
supposition that it was the matter or principle of heat. 
But its present name is compounded of two Greek 
words, which signify to generate water, from the fact 
that, when changed by combustion, it constitutes 
water. 

As we are obliged, in support of the proposition 
that hydrogen is negative, to examine the subject 
critically, and to show the falsity of prevailing theories 
upon the subject, we shall first quote the language 
of a celebrated author, and then examine those senti-. 
ments for ourselves. Here follows an extract from 
Turner : 

" Hydrogen is a colorless gas ; when pure, has 
neither odor nor taste, and is a powerful refractor of 
light. Like oxygen, it cannot be resolved into more 
simple parts, and, like that gas, has hitherto resisted 
all attempts to compress it into a liquid. It is the 
lightest body in nature, and is consequently the best 
material for filling balloons. From its extreme light- 
ness it is difficult to ascertain its precise density by 
weighing ; because the presence of minute quantities 
of common air or watery vapor occasions considerable 
error. 

" Hydrogen does not change the blue color of 
vegetables. It is sparingly absorbed by water, one 
hundred cubic inches of that liquid dissolving about 
one and a half of the gas. It cannot support respira- 
tion — for an animal soon perishes when confined in 



OXYGEN AND HYDROGEN. I49 

it Death ensues from deprivation of oxygen, rather 
than from any noxious quality of the hydrogen — 
since an atmosphere composed of a due proportion 
of oxygen and hydrogen gas may be respired without 
inconvenience. Nor is it a supporter of combustion, 
for when a Hghted candle, fixed on wire, is passed up 
into an inverted jar full of hydrogen gas, the light 
instantly disappears. 

" Hydrogen gas is inflammable in an eminent 
degree, though, like other combustibles, it requires 
the aid of a supporter of combustion. This is exem- 
plified by the experiment above alluded to, in which 
the gas is kindled by the flame of a candle, but burns 
only where it is in contact with the air. Its combus- 
tion, when conducted in this manner, goes on tran- 
quilly, and is attended with a yellowish-blue flame 
and a very feeble light. The phenomena are different 
when the hydrogen is previously mixed with a due 
quantity of atmospheric air. The approach of flame 
not only sets fire to the gas near it, but the whole is 
kindled at the same instant ; and a flash of light passes 
through the mixture, followed by a violent explosion. 
The best proportion for the experiment is two measures 
of hydrogen to five or six of air. The explosion is 
far more violent when pure oxygen is used instead 
of atmospheric air, particularly when the gases are 
mixed together in the ratio of one measure of oxygen 
to two of hydrogen. 

" Oxygen and hydrogen gases cannot combine at 

ordinary temperatures, and nia}% therefore, be kept in 

a state of mixture without even gradual combination 

taking place between them. I l)'(lrogen nia\' bo set 

13 ■'^ 



150 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

on fire, when in contact with air or oxygen gas, by 
flame, by a soHd body heated to bright redness, and 
by the electric spark. If a jet of hydrogen gas be 
thrown upon recently prepared spongy platinum, this 
metal almost instantly becomes red-hot, and then sets 
fire to the gas, a discovery w^hich was made in the 
year 1824, by Professor Doebereiner of Jena. The 
power of flame and electricity, in causing a mixture 
of hydrogen with air or oxygen gas to explode, is 
limited. Mr. Cavendish found that flame occasions a 
very feeble explosion when the hydrogen is mixed 
with nine times its bulk of air ; and that a mixture 
of four measures of hydrogen with one of air does 
not explode at all. An explosive mixture, formed, 
of two measures of hydrogen and one of oxygen gas, 
explodes from all the causes above enumerated. Biot 
found that a sudden and violent compression likewise 
causes an explosion, apparently from the heat emitted 
during the operation ; for an equal degree of conden- 
sation, slowly produced, has not the same effect. The 
electric spark ceases to cause detonation when the 
explosive mixture is diluted with twelve times its 
volume of air, fourteen of oxygen, or nine of hydrogen; 
or when it is expanded to sixteen times its bulk by 
diminished pressure. Spongy platinum acts just as 
rapidly as flame or the electric spark in producing 
explosion, provided the gases are quite pure and 
mixed in the exact ratio of two to one.* Mr. Faraday 

* For a variety of facts respecting the causes which prevent the ac- 
tion of flame, electricity, and platinum in producing detonation, the 
reader may consult the essay of M. Grotthus in the Ann. de Chimie, 
vol. Ixxxii. ; Sir H. Davy's work on flame ; Dr. Henry's essay in the \ 
Philosophical Transactions for 1824; and a paper by myself in the 
Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for the same year. 



ox YGEN AND HYDR O GEN. 1 5 1 

finds that platinum foil, if perfectly clean, produces 
gradual though rather rapid combination of the gases, 
often followed by explosion. (* Philosophical Trans- 
actions,' 1834.) 

" When the action of heat, the electric spark, and 
spongy platinum no longer cause explosion, a silent 
and gradual combination between the gases may still 
be occasioned by them. Sir H. Davy observed that 
oxygen and hydrogen gases united slowly with one 
another, when they are exposed to a temperature 
above the boiling-point of mercury, and below that 
at which glass begins to appear luminous in the dark. 
An explosive mixture, diluted with air to too great 
a degree to explode by electricity, is made to unite 
silently by a succession of electric sparks. Spongy 
platinum causes them to unite slowly, though mixed 
with one hundred times their bulk of oxygen gas." 

In the examination of this subject, and in com- 
menting upon the facts developed and the positions 
taken in the extract, we shall do it in the order in 
which they occur in that extract. 

It is said that ** hydrogen gas cannot support 
respiration." And why not? It is affirmed that it 
is not because it contains any deleterious quality, but 
because it is simply deficient in oxygen. We grant 
that all this is true. It will not support respiration, 
and consequently life, when unmixed with oxygen, 
simply for the want of that oxygen. 

Now, what is there in the oxygen, and not in the 
hydrogen, which supports respiration and life ? We 
affirm that it is positive electricity, with which the 
oxygen is charged, and of which the hydrogen is 



152 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

almost entirely deficient. By examining the phe- 
nomena of respiration in the strong light of the facts 
which chemistry throws upon the subject, we shall 
be convinced that this is the case. What are. the 
phenomena of respiration ? 

When atmospheric air is drawn into the lungs by 
inhalation, a remarkable chemical change takes place, 
through its influence upon the dark venous blood in 
its passage through the lungs, where, in the innumer- 
able veins and air-cells, it comes in contact with the 
atmosphere. The oxygen of the atmosphere is decom- 
posed, the imponderable principle of the oxygen, or 
its electric cause, enters into the blood, neutralizes, 
by a chemical change, certain deleterious properties, 
which, if retained in the blood, would destroy life; 
the ponderable encasement of the imponderable 
principle, whatever that encasement be, is exhaled 
again, the blood changes from a dark purple to a 
florid red color, in part by being unloaded of its 
carbonic acid gas, and the streams of life are purified 
from all stagnating causes and qualities, vivified and 
filled with their vital and energizing warmth, by the 
electricity infused into them. Is not this, in brief, 
the reason why oxygen gas 'is necessary for the 
support of life ? Is not animal heat, or the heat and 
consequent fluidity of the blood, caused by the posi- 
tive electricity containea in it ? Is not this, in fact, 
the principle of mere animal life, since the blood is 
that animal life? Were this gas negative^ could its 
effects upon the blood be such as we find them? 
Could a negative body impart heat at all, since the 
absence of electricity is the absence of the essential 



OXYGEN AND HYDROGEN, 1 5 3 

principle of fire or heat ? The appropriate answer to 
these questions is perfectly obvious. All must, we 
think, from these facts and reasons, conclude that 
oxygen is, and must of necessity be, positive, and 
hydrogen is consequently negative^ since it is the 
very opposite of oxygen. But there is still further 
proof to be drawn from the extract itself 

Some there may be who may still affirm, with the 
books, that hydrogen must be positive, since it is 
known to be *' inflammable in an eminent degree," in 
the language of the extract from Turner, and, therefore, 
contrary to the assertions above, it must contain the 
principle of fire. But chemists have been entirely at 
fault in this position. The fact is, it is not inflammable 
at all, which fact is capable of such lucid and perfectly 
logical demonstration as must satisfy every ingenuous 
and unprejudiced mind. 

Although hydrogen is affirmed to be inflammable, 
yet it is said in the same breath that it is " not a 
supporter of combustion," which is a palpable con- 
tradiction in terms. Can any substance contain the 
principle of fire, or be combustible, without having at 
the same time the power to sustain combustion ? The 
thing is impossible. "When," in the language of 
Turner, " a lighted candle, fixed on a wire, is passed 
up into an inverted jar full of hydrogen gas, the light 
instantly disappears." Now, why is this? If hydro- 
gen were inflammable, would it put out fire ? The 
idea is perfectly absurd. One might just as well, and 
with just as much reason, affirm that fire would put 
out fire, as to affirm that an inflammable gas would 
put out fire. 



154 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

To show the difference between the two gases, if a 
lighted candle be inserted in ajar of hydrogen, it will 
be extinguished; but if there be the least spark or 
smoke at the end of the wick, and it be inserted in 
a jar of oxygen, it will be inst§,ntly relighted, and so, 
by inserting the candle alternately in hydrogen and 
oxygen, it will alternately be put out and relighted, 
until the two gases escape, or the candle is consumed. 
Now, which appears, by this experiment, the most 
like a positive gas, hydrogen or oxygen ? The one 
extinguishes flame, and the other relights it. Which, 
then, seems to 'be injiammable ? Common sense can 
answer that question, and this must be its answer: 
That substance must be inflammable which will aid to 
burn a body, instead of extinguishing it when on fire. 

But the question may here be asked why hydrogen 
gas will burn, as in the cases enumerated in the extract 
we are considering. We answer unhesitatingly that 
it will not burn at all, that it never did and never will. 
It will inflame, it is said, by the application of a 
lighted candle, when in contact with atmospheric air, 
which contains oxygen, or else in contact with pure 
oxygen itself. But why is this ? Why must it come 
invariably in contact with a supporter of combustion ? 
Simply for this reason. The hydrogen is negative 
and the oxygen is positive. That positive contains 
the principle of fire, or electricity, and is, therefore, a 
supporter of combustion. The negative is the entire 
absence of the principle of fire. The one is therefore 
highly plus, and the other deeply minus, and when 
they are mixed, either by contact with the atmosphere, 
or with a certain proportion of the two gases pure, 



OXYGEN AND HYDR O GEN. 1 5 5 

they unite upon the application of flame with an ex- 
plosion. This union and explosion are precisely in 
accordance with the known principles of electrical 
attraction. Between the two there exists the strong 
affinity of opposite polarities. The plus of the one is 
given out to the minus of the other, and this com- 
bustion is the result. But the fire depends, not upon 
the hydrogen, but upon the oxygen, for when it gives 
out its plus to the minus of the hydrogen, in the 
effort to restore an equilibrium between two opposites, 
that plus charge appears in the form of fire. This, 
and -this only, it appears to us, is the cause or reason 
of the combustion, and must prove conclusively that 
oxygen is highly positive, while hydrogen is deeply 
negative. There cannot possibly, it seems to us, be 
any rational doubt about it. 

There is another fact still in the extract, which, if 
left unexplained, may lead to false conclusions. It is 
this : " If a jet of hydrogen gas be thrown upon 
recently prepared spongy platinum, this metal almost 
instantly becomes red-hot, and then sets fire to the 
gas." Now, this question may occur : if hydrogen be 
not inflammable, and if it contain not the principle of 
heat, how can it make the platinum red-Jwt? This 
question we shall answer by denying that any such 
effect is caused by the hydi-ogen simply. There is 
another way to account for the phenomenon — a way 
in more strict accordance with the known laws of 
chemistry. Platinum is a positive substance, and is 
so classed in the list of positive substances, and hydro- 
gen is negative, as we have seen. Now, when a jot 
of this gas is thrown upon the spongy platinum, wh)- 



156 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER, 

does that metal become red-hot, unless the positive 
charge of the hydrogen make it so? This is the 
philosophical solution of the question. The hydrogen, 
being deeply minus, while the platinum, in comparison, 
is highly plus, the electricity or latent caloric of the 
metal rushes to its surface, where, by strong chemical 
affinities, a deeply minus substance calls it out and 
makes the plus substance red-hot by its own latent 
caloric becoming visible. This is the law precisely 
of all galvanic action, and indeed of all chemical agen- 
cies whatever. A metal can be affected or decom- 
posed in two ways. If a substance, highly plus, be 
brought, in solution or in the form of a gas, in contact 
with the metal, so as to have the facility, by that con- 
tact, of taking hold of its particles, the plus substance 
will decompose the metal more or less rapidly, in ex- 
act accordance with the difference in the respective 
amounts of latent caloric or electricity which they 
contain. 

If this position be correct, as it doubtless is, then 
we have a correct solution for the action of the gal- 
vanic battery. When the associated plates of zinc 
and copper, composing the battery, are plunged into 
a strong solution of nitric acid, the zinc plate is 
attacked by the acid, instead of the copper. And why ? 
Because it is more positively charged than the cop- 
per. Rapid decomposition of the zinc is the conse- 
quence. And why ? Because, it being plus and the 
acid minus, the latent caloric of the zinc, or its elec- 
tricity, which makes it plus, burns its way out through 
the metal to the deeply negative body which surrounds 
that metal, and thus decomposition takes place; 



OXYGEN AND HYDR O GEN. 157 

latent caloric is set free by burning up the metal in its 
passage to the minus substance, for which it has a 
stronger affinity, and during this change a portion of 
it escapes by the conducting poles of the battery. 

The acid would act upon the copper in the same 
way it does upon the zinc, were it associated with 
some other metal which should be relatively minus, 
or have less latent caloric than itself This is proven 
from the fact that, although the solution of nitric 
acid will not materially affect the copper when associ- 
ated with the zinc, yet, when the same acid is poured 
upon the copper by itself, the copper is rapidly con- 
sumed, the latent caloric burns its way out to the 
minus acid, and during the decomposition, which is 
attended with no small commotion, a purple vapor 
rises, which has almost the appearance of flame. 

But oxygen gas corrodes or burns, or decomposes 
the metals for a reason just the reverse of that which 
we have assigned for the action of the acids upon 
them. It is highly positive or plus, and, therefore, 
imparts its latent fire — caloric or electricity, just which 
you please to call it — to the metals, instead of receiving 
\tfrom them, as the acids do, when in contact with 
them. The consequence is that it burns them to ashes 
silently, as in the corrosion or oxidation of the metals 
exposed to a damp atmosphere, or with an intensely 
brilliant corruscation, as in their deflagration when 
inserted in a jar of pure oxygen. 

We dismiss this subject of the various influences 
and agencies of oxygen and hydrogen, but more par- 
ticularly of oxygen, not because it has been exhausted 
by any means, nor because it could not be extended 
14 



158 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

with interest, — for there could be a volume written 
without exhausting it, — but because the design and 
limits of this work will not permit. Enough, however, 
has been said, we think, by way of argument and 
proof, to demonstrate to the perfect satisfaction of 
every mind that is willing to be satisfied, that oxygen 
gas is positive, and hydrogen gas is negative, and 
that the opinions of Pouillet upon this subject were 
right, and those of Davy and Thompson were wrong. 
Enough has also been said to show conclusively that 
electricity is an essential agent in the chemical changes 
which we witness around us, and which are contin- 
ually occurring throughout nature, and to prove that 
the actual cause of many of the wondrous phenomena 
which come under the observation of chemists has 
been mistaken. 

In our next lecture we design to show, among other 
important facts, what an essential agent electricity is 
in the preservation of health, and how, in some cases 
of disease, it may be of very important service in 
counteracting the influences of that disease upon the 
system, and in giving tone and vigor to a debilitated 
constitution. 



LECTURE VIII. 

ANIMAL ELECTRICITY AND ELECTRIC 
PATHOLOGY. 

AS intimated in a former lecture, we intend, in the 
present, to examine the chemical effects of elec- 
tricity in another important department, perhaps the 
most important of human knowledge, into which we 
have not, as yet, introduced the reader. We feel, as 
we enter it, our incompetency to do anything like 
justice to the subject, for the agencies of electricity 
in the production of animal life, its indispensable 
necessity in the preservation of that life, and its 
remedial qualities, open a vast field of most interesting 
investigation before us — a field hitherto but little 
explored — a field, every part of which is full of such 
marvellous interest, that the Psalmist very properly 
exclaims, when contemplating it, " I am fearfully and 
wonderfully made." 

If, in passing from the contemplation of inorganic 
matter to organic, we range through the various de- 
partments of the vegetable kingdom, and the lower 
order of animated existences, we find that the electric 
agent, or caloric — which we shall hereafter prove is 
the same thing — is the '^xaw^X iiistruniottal cause o\ 
the germination of life. No acorn ever burst its shell 
and rose into a stately monarch of the forest — not 

159 



1 6o A NE W PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

one of the ten thousand various seeds of trees, of 
herbage and of flowers, that clothe and variegate the 
landscape, ever vegetated without the agency of heat. 
They would forever have lain dormant and lifeless in 
the cold and withering embrace of the earth ; and, 
unwarmed into life by the genial influences of the 
caloric of the sunlight, this globe would have been 
covered with a chilling desolation, as blank as that 
of an iceberg, and no more vegetation would have 
adorned it in a vesture of green than would now 
spring up on the snow-banks of a December in Nova 
Zembla. 

When we pass from the vegetable to the animal 
kingdom, we find the same great truth illustrated by 
a thousand facts. What generates life in the ^g^ of 
the feathered tribe, and sustains and fosters it from 
the mere incipient embryo of existence to the burst- 
ing of the shell by the little chick, as he starts into 
animation from his prison-house ? Why, caloric, and 
caloric alone. If the hen, or any other animal of the 
feathered tribe, fails to brood over the eggs with un- 
wearied constancy — if, during any portion of the 
gradual stages of the progression of existence, from 
the incipient enlargement of the impregnated ovary 
to the period when the shell is burst, the ^<gg be left 
to cool below the equal temperature of animal heat, 
it becomes addled immediately, and the principle of 
animation departs. Even where there is no incuba- 
tion of the animal, the ^<gg is still hatched by the 
agency of caloric. The ostrich buries hers in the 
sands of the desert in the Torrid zone, where she 
leaves it to be warmed into life by the influences of a 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. l6l 

vertical sun. The serpent of the same zone, it is said, 
follows the example of the ostrich, and, by the ger- 
minating power of the heated sand-hills, peoples the 
burning wastes of Sahara with her venomous brood. 
Even that industrious little spinster, the silkworm, 
that fabricates from leaves the imperial robes and 
vestments of monarchs, is brought into life by a 
similar process — by the application to the ovum of 
either natural or artificial heat. 

But, although it may here be confessed that caloric 
is absolutely necessary to the production of those 
forms of existence to which we have alluded, yet it 
may be denied that this acknowledged generating 
agent is electricity, as we have affirmed. Leaving our 
main argument in proof of the position we have 
assumed until we come to the subjects of solar light 
and heat, we would here ask, if caloric and electricity 
be not inseparable ? Was there ever a distinct elec- 
trical phenomenon of any kind developed to the 
observation of chemists, or of anybody else, without 
the distinct development, at the same time, of a cor- 
responding amount of heat ? or, more properly speak- 
ing, is not the electricity developed, in fact, nothing 
more nor less than the caloric which is inseparably 
attendant upon every such development ? 

Friction is one of the main causes of the production 
of electricity. If amber, for instance, be rubbed, or a 
stick of sealing-wax, they imnicdiately become elec- 
trically excited, and will prove it by attracting to 
themselves contiguous light bodies. This is the case 
with a glass tube, or an}' other electric, when rubbed 
with dry silk or woollen cloth. It is a fact well 
14* L 



1 62 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

worthy of attention and remark that heat is invariably- 
produced by that friction. Now, are not the electrical 
phenomena, which are manifested by that friction, 
owing entirely to the latent caloric which is called 
out, and made visible, since it is ever developed by 
the exciting cause? Let us examine the catalogue 
of electrical facts, and see if we do not find still further 
confirmation of the proposition we have assumed, and 
sufficient to convince the sceptical. 

According to the experiments of M. Pouillet, already 
recorded in this work, the gas that rises from burning 
charcoal is positively electrified. What is that but the 
evolution of caloric in a certain form ? 

By heating metallic rods at one end, and thus dis- 
turbing the equalization of their temperature, electric 
or magnetic phenomena make their appearance ; for 
one end of such rods will be positive, and the other 
consequently negative, as is exhibited plainly by their 
attractions and repulsions of the electrometer or mag- 
netic needle. Here the character of the electrifying 
agent is so perfectly apparent, that there can be no 
mistake at all about it. It is caloric, and nothing but 
caloric. 

The galvanic battery in action always produces 
heat. If the acidulated solution, into which the bat- 
tery is plunged, is perfectly cold at the time of its 
immersion, that solution will be heated so rapidly 
that it will, in some cases, actually boil in less than 
three minutes. Now, what causes this great and sud- 
den change in the temperature of the solution, except 
it be the latent caloric of the zinc set free by the 
process of the combustion of the metal, heretofore 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. 163 

described, and which constitutes the galvanic current, 
and produces the galvanic effects of the battery ? We 
feel that candid minds must be irresistibly brought to 
the same conclusion by these facts. That caloric 
which heats the solution must be the electric agent, 
and that electric agent the caloric. There can pos- 
sibly be no mistake about this. 

All crystallizations of salts, and other crystalliza- 
tions of whatever character they may be, exhibit 
electrical phenomena, and are always attended with 
the evolution of caloric. All freezing mixtures expel 
caloric rapidly, and evolve also electricity. According 
to the estimate of Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia, the crys- 
tallization of vapor which attends a snow-storm gives 
out more caloric than a shower of red-hot pulverized 
glass, and we know that such crystallization of vapor 
is accompanied with electrical phenomena. 

The further elucidation of the identity of caloric 
and electricity will be referred to in its appropriate 
place — the discussion of the subject of solar heat — 
since in this connection it is rather a digression from 
the topics we had selected. We shall there collocate, 
we think, such a formidable ar^-ay of additional facts 
as must convince the most sceptical unbeliever. But 
enough has been said, we presume, to prove that the 
caloric, which is the cause of the germination of all 
seeds, and the principle which vivifies the embryo of 
the egg, is electricity, and produces these effects by 
the known chemical influences of that agent. 

With the single remark that, if the subject be 
closely scrutinized, it will be apparent to every ^^\\c 
that the reproduction and continuation of every species 



164 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

of animals, as well as vegetables, are owing to an 
electric cause, we pass on to the consideration of other 
important topics connected with this subject. 

Having shown that caloric or electricity is the 
generating agent of mere animal life, we shall now 
endeavor to show that it is a more essential agent in 
the continuance of that life, and in the preservation of 
health, than we have, at a superficial glance, been apt 
to imagine. 

Health we consider to be the equilibrium of the 
electrical condition of the human system, for instance ; 
and the more perfect that equilibrium, the more per- 
fect the health. 

Disease, on the contrary, is either a plus or a 
minus of the whole system, or else an unequal elec- 
trical condition of the system, making one part plus 
and the other part minus, and thereby causing ob- 
structions and stagnation of the vital fluid. 

We will, for a moment, examine into the condition 
of the human system when minus, and ascertain 
whether the facts in the case will sustain our theory. 

What are the phenomena, for instance, attending 
the distressing complaint of diarrhoea, cholera mor- 
bus, or Asiatic cholera ? The system is in a deeply 
minus condition. The surface is cold ; the blood 
scarcely circulates in the external channels of its pas- 
sage, or in the veins, leaving the extremities in a 
chilled condition ; the skin assumes a bluish cast ; no 
perspiration starts from the system; but if there be 
any moisture, it is a cold, clammy suffusion, the same 
as dew. Having left the surface and extremities, the 
vital current rushes with tremendous pressure upon 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. 165 

the heart and main internal arteries ; the delicate 
membranous coatings of the stomach and alimentary 
canal become turgid and inflamed, and, in some cases, 
raw, ulcerated, and suffused with blood ; the breathingr 
is labored, as though the lethargies of a nightmare 
pressed upon the vital apparatus ; the breath becomes 
hot and scalding; and death makes rapid and giant 
strides upon the debilitated constitution. 

Now for an explanation of the chemical cause of 
this condition of the system. It will be found, upon 
the closest scrutiny, that in ninety-nine cases out of 
a hundred, when the above symptoms make their 
appearance, the stomach is filled with a cold, slimy, 
ropy, indigestible load, which is, of course, a deeply 
minus or negative substance. Now what are the 
chemical consequences of this negative substance upon 
the system ? They are deleterious in the extreme, 
as will be explained by a reference to an experiment 
in a former lecture. It will be recollected that we 
demonstrated that, if a current of galvanism be passed 
in to the tongue, it produces an acid taste in the 
mouth. This proves that an inward current of elec- 
tricity is, in some mysterious way, the generator of 
acidity, which, as we have shown abundantly in 
another connection, is the reason why all acids are 
minus bodies. 

The contents of the stomach, being minus or acid, 
will, of course, have an attraction for the plus or alka- 
line polarities of electricity, and the current will there- 
fore be imvard from the surface, which will be left 
cold, while those burning alkaline polarities will 
irritate the internal coats of the stomach and intes- 



1 66 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

tines, the same as they are irritated in the cholera 
and other kindred diseases,-and produce, according to 
strict chemical laws and agencies, all the fearful effects 
of those distressing and often fatal complaints. 

There is a case directly in point which came under 
our own observation, and which will forcibly illustrate 
both the effects and phenomena of the disease we 
have been describing, and the appropriate chemical 
remedies for that disease. 

Some seven or eight years ago, a young man, a 
printer by profession, while boarding in our family, 
was attacked one night most violently with a com- 
plaint almost akin to the Asiatic cholera. Being 
reluctant to trouble the family, he made no one ac- 
quainted with his situation during the night, and, 
rising early in the morning, we found him lying upon 
the stairs, where he had reclined, almost perfectly 
helpless and exhausted, in his passage to his chamber. 
Seeing him in this miserable condition, we roused 
him, and aided him to his bed. As soon as there 
was light enough to see his complexion, we discov- 
ered that the surface and extremities of his system 
had a cold, bluish appearance, almost like the col- 
lapsed or lethargic state of the cholera; he was 
racked with violent and almost spasmodic pains, and 
was evidently sinking very rapidly into the arms of 
death. 

We dispatched a messenger immediately for a 
physician ; but, feeling that medical aid might possibly 
come too late, we concluded to do what we could in 
the meantime to check the disease. Knowing that 
he had often complained of acidity of stomach, and 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC, 1 6/ 

thinking that this must be the primary cause of the 
distressing complaint under which he was groaning, 
we determined to administer rehef upon strictly chem- 
ical principles. We accordingly mixed a tumbler of 
very strong sal-soda, which he drank. We then took 
a large fold of coarse flannel, filled it full of fourth- 
proof brandy, and sprinkled it over thickly with 
ground black pepper. This we spread over his 
stomach and bowels, and then covered him with an 
extra quantity of bed-clothes. The result was sur- 
prising and almost magical. In less than twenty 
minutes an active reaction took place in the system. 
The cold, blue complexion left the surface ; the coun- 
tenance put on the natural hue of health ; a moist 
perspiration started out ; the racking pains left him 
entirely, and he recovered immediately without fur- 
ther medical assistance. 

Now, in this case it is perfectly evident that the 
cause of the disease was acidity. The matter in the 
stomach was deeply minus, the current of electricity 
was therefore inward, instead of being outward, and 
the surface and extremities were consequently left 
cold ; the blood, in thickened, stagnated streams, 
pressed upon the heart and internal arteries, and, 
while the extremities were almost rigid, the internal 
apparatus of vitality was parched with a burning, 
withering heat. To restore healthy action again, all 
that was necessary was simply to reverse this order 
of the electrical condition of the system. This was 
done by neutralizing the minus with a plus i)itcnia!I\\ 
or an acid with an alkali, so as to give the current oi 
electricity an outward, instead of an i)iward, direction, 



1 68 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

by making the contents of the stomach plus, which 
would, of course, leave its internal coatings minus, 
and by aiding that outward current by the external 
application of brandy and pepper. Thus was the 
effect removed by removing the cause of that effect. 

There are other diseases that can be just as speedily 
cured by understanding fully the electrical condition 
of the human system, and then by making such an 
application of chemical remedies as to neutralize the 
cause. 

Pulmonary complaints can be cured, in ninety-nine 
cases out of a hundred, where internal irritation or 
inflammation is the cause, by frequent and severe 
friction, provided it be attended with proper exercise 
and diet. And why? Because it is an invariable 
law that, if the outer surface is plus, the inner is 
minus; and if the outer is minus, the inner is plus. 

Now, if the inner be plus or inflamed, what is to be 
done ? Why simply produce a counter-irritation, and 
keep up that irritation sufficiently long to permit all 
ulcerous affections to heal, as they will, when the 
current of electricity is outward, as we shall illustrate 
more fully after having entered into an examination 
of the blood and its agencies. This examination we 
shall preface by an extract from Liebig's "Animal 
Chemistry." 

" If we hold that increase of mass in the animal 
body, the development of its organs, and the supply 
of waste — that all this is dependent on the blood, 
that is, on ingredients of the' blood, then only those 
substances can properly be called nutritious, or con- 
sidered as food, which are capable of conversion into 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. . 169 

blood. To determine, therefore, what substances are 
capable of affording nourishment, it is only neces- 
sary to ascertain the composition of the food, and 
to compare it with that of the ingredients of the 
blood. 

** The substances require especial consideration as 
the chief ingredients of the blood; one of these sepa- 
rates immediately from the blood when withdrawn 
from the circulation. It is well known that in this case 
blood coagulates, and separates into a yellowish liquid, 
the serum of the blood, and a gelatinous mass, which 
adheres to a rod or stick in soft, elastic fibres, when 
coagulating blood is briskly stirred. This is \S\q fibrme 
of the blood, which is identical in all its properties 
with muscular fibre, when the latter is purified from 
all foreign matters. 

" The second principal ingredient of the blood is 
contained in the serum, and gives to this liquid all 
the properties of the white of eggs, with which it is 
identical. When heated, it coagulates into a white 
elastic mass, and the coagulating substance is called 
albume7i. 

" Fibrine and albumen, the chief ingredients of blood, 
contain, in all, seven chemical elements, among which 
nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur are found. They 
contain also the earth of bones. The scrum retains 
in solution sea salt and other salts of potash and soda, 
in which the acids are carbonic, phosphoric, and 
sulphuric acids. The globules of the blood contain 
fibrine and albumen, along with a red coloring matter, 
in which iron is a constant clement. Besides those, 
the blood contains certain fatty bodies in small 
15 



I/O A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

quantity, which differ from ordinary fats in several of 
their properties. 

" Chemical analysis has led to the remarkable result 
that fibrine and albumen contain the same organic 
elements united in the same proportion, so that two 
analyses, the one of fibrine and the other of albumen, 
do not differ more than two analyses of fibrine or 
two of albumen respectively do, in the composition 
of one hundred parts. 

" In these tv/o ingredients of blood, the particles 
are arranged in a different order, as is shown by the 
difference of their external properties ; but in chemical 
composition, in the ultimate proportion of the organic 
elements, they are identical. 

** This conclusion has lately been beautifully con- 
firmed by a distinguished physiologist (Denis), who 
has succeeded in converting fibrine into albumen, 
that is, in giving it the solubrity and coagulability 
by heat which characterize the white of ^gg. 

"" Fibrine and albumen, besides having the same 
composition, agree also in this, that both dissolve in 
concentrated muriatic acid, yielding a solution of an 
intense purple color. This solution, whether made 
with fibrine or albumen, has the very same reactions 
with all substances yet tried. 

** Both the albumen and fibrine, in the process of 
nutrition, are capable of being converted into muscular 
fibre, and muscular fibre is capable of being converted 
into blood. These facts have long been established 
by physiologists, and chemistry has merely proved 
that these metamorphoses can be accomplished under 
the influence of a certain force, without the aid of a 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. \J\ 

third substance, or of its elements, and without the 
addition of any foreign element, or the separation of 
any element previously present in these substances. 

" If we now compare the composition of all organ- 
ized parts with that of fibrine and albumen, the 
following relations present themselves : 

*' All parts of the animal body which have a decided 
shape, which form parts of organs, contain nitrogen. 
No part of an organ which possesses motion and life 
is destitute of nitrogen ; all of them contain likewise 
carbon and the elements of water — the latter, how- 
ever, in no case in the proportion to form water. 

" The chief ingredients of the blood contain nearly 
seventeen per cent, of nitrogen, and no part of an organ 
contains less than seventeen per cent, of nitrogen. 

" The most convincing experiments and observa- 
tions have proved that the animal body is absolutely 
incapable of producing an elementary body, such as 
carbon or nitrogen, out of substances which do not 
contain it; and it obviously follows that all kinds of 
food fit for the production either of blood, or of 
cellular tissue, membranes, skin, hair, muscular fibre, 
etc., must contain a certain amount of nitrogen, 
because that element is essential to the composi- 
tion of the above-named organs; because the organs 
cannot create it from the other elements presented to 
them ; and finally, because no nitrogen is absorbed 
from the atmosphere in the vital process. 

" The substance of the brain and nerves contains a 
large quantity of albumen, and, in addition to this, 
two peculiar fatty acids, distinguished from other fats 
by containing phosphorus (phosphoric acid). One o{ 
these contains nitrogen (Fremy). 



1/2 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

" Finally, water and common fat are those ingredi- 
ents of the body which are destitute of hydrogen. Both 
are amorphous or unorganized, and only so far take 
part in the vital process as that their presence is 
required for the due performance of the vital functions. 
The inorganic constituents of the body are iron, lime, 
magnesia, common salt, and the alkalies." 

The above extract from Leibig, though a partial 
digression, has, nevertheless, been introduced because 
it contained two important facts — first, that the 
increase of growth and weight in the human system 
depends mainly or wholly upon the blood ; and 
secondly, that the blood contains all those inorganic 
constituents of which the organic is composed. The 
blood, then, it seems, is the chief agent in the 
distribution to different parts of the system of the 
nutriment, which either builds or repairs the organic 
structure, and supplies what is wasted. All the 
chemical changes, then, which transform the vege- 
table and animal nutriment into chyle, the chyle into 
blood, and the blood into flesh and bones and nerves 
and muscles — the gastric juice, the saliva, the tears, 
and every other secretion, are performed through the 
medium and influence of the heart, veins, and arteries. 

A very interesting question here suggests itself 
naturally to the mind, respecting the particular cause 
and the 7nodus operandi of these multiform agencies, 
whose solution we confess is very difficult, but which 
can be somewhat elucidated by certain familiar facts 
of ordinary occurrence, from which certain common- 
sense conclusions can be logically drawn. How does 
the blood resolve the constituents of food into flesh, 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. 1 73 

or distribute its healthful and nutritious qualities into 
the organic mass of the system, and expel from that 
system those portions which are deleterious to animal 
life and vigor ? 

These questions can better be answered after ex- 
amining the phenomena of respiration. The blood, 
when simply considered in regard to its ponderable 
elements, has no inherent power whatever to produce 
chemical changes, and to convert food into the com- 
ponent materials of the system, and separate that 
which is baleful and unhealthy from that which is 
not. That agency, so powerful and wondrous, belongs 
to the imponderable principle of the oxygen gas 
which is inhaled by respiration, and to that alone, and 
that, as we have heretofore abundantly proven, is 
positive electricity. The all-pervading electric agent, 
after all, does the work. And what are the phenomena 
attending some of its operations ? 

The lungs, as we have seen, are the grand laboratory 
where almost the whole chemical changes of the 
human system are affected. In them the venous 
blood is transformed to the arterial, for the venous 
blood is one substance, and the arterial quite another 
— that is, the one possesses some ingredients which 
the other does not, or else the one possesses some 
ingredients in greater proportion than the other. The 
venous blood in its passage through the veins, along 
the courses of the lymphatics, and by the absorbents 
and secretory organs of the system, brings along a 
load of carbon and other matters deposited by the 
food in different parts which arc at war with life, and 
which, if not expelled from it, woukl bring this 
15* 



1 74 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

wondrous but frail tenement down into the unorgan- 
ized mass of mere lifeless material out of which it 
was constructed. The venous blood, we say, brings 
along this load in its passage through the lungs, and 
there exposes it to the action of the oxygen of the 
atmosphere, by which it is all decomposed when the 
breathing apparatus performs its appropriate duties ; 
the carbon is expelled in the form of carbonic acid 
gas, a most deleterious poison, and other pernicious 
materials find vent in the same way. The blood 
being purified from those substances which will not 
aid in the construction, stability, and healthfulness of 
the organic system, and changed or arterialized from 
a dark purple to a florid red color, bounds on its 
gladsome course with greater elasticity, making the 
spirits buoyant, and spreading the flush of health 
over the cheeks. 

From these facts, which are incontrovertible, and 
can be tested, it will be very readily perceived, what 
must be the fatal or pernicious consequence of any 
defect in the chest, either natural or acquired, by 
those sedentary or slothful habits by which the 
breathing apparatus is circumscribed or compressed, 
so that the air-cells cannot be expanded and com- 
pletely filled at every inhalation by the vivifying and 
purifying oxygen. By such defect, it is evident that 
but a small proportion of oxygen would be brought 
in contact with the blood. Of course, but a small 
quantity of those deleterious substances, about which 
we have remarked, would be decomposed and ex- 
pelled by it. Being retained in the system, they would 
aid to pull down rather than build up, to enfeeble 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. 1/5 

rather than strengthen, the body; the lungs would 
become tuberculous and ulcerated, the liver inflamed, 
the heart and whole arterial system diseased, and the 
citadel of life would be prematurely and inevitably 
stormed and sacked by the invading forces.. 

How very essential is the knowledge of this fact to 
parents, guardians, and teachers in the physical edu- 
cation of children committed to their care and culture! 
If they would give them a healthy constitution, they 
must pay particular attention to the development of 
this curious apparatus of animal life — the grand lab- 
oratory in which are wrought the chemical changes, 
the decompositions and the recompositions, that 
build up and beautify, or pull down and deform the 
organic structure ; for, to use an appropriate figure, 
the lungs are the furnace, the blood is the liquid of 
life, and oxygen is the fuel that heats it up, and makes 
that steam-engine, the heart,* propel the streams of 
vitality through all their purple channels. If the fur- 
nace be compressed from any cause — if it be cramped 
and small, the quantity of fuel consumed will, of 
course, be proportionably less, feebler will be the 
strokes of that engine, and more dull, languid, and 
stagnated will be the current of life. 

It is plain, then, that the system of hot-house culture, 
which prevails to too great an extent at the present 
day, is all wrong. Children should not be brought up 
in the shade. They should be permitted and encour- 
aged to engage in those animating sports in the open 
air which quicken the respiration, and inflate and dis- 

'*= Not the heart, but electricity or oxygen gives the life power that 
acts on the blood. 



1 76 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

tend, to their utmost capacity, every air-cell of the 
lungs. Yes, they should Inhale with delight the brisk 
breezes, and face the keen northwester, when Fahren- 
heit Is five or ten degrees below zero. By such a 
course of physical education, It Is perfectly evident 
that the foundation must be laid for a healthy consti- 
tution, by giving a round, full development to the 
lungs, in which the streams of life are purified and 
prepared for the healthful construction of the physical 
organization. 

In this connection we will notice a few phenomena, 
the causes of which are not generally understood, and 
which will throw light upon the interesting subject we 
are discussing. 

It is a fact well known to every observer, that chil- 
dren consume vastly more food, in proportion to their 
bulk, than adults ; but the reason why they do is not 
so obvious. There is, however, a definite chemical 
cause. Children breathe much more rapidly than 
grown persons ; they therefore Inhale a much greater 
quantity of oxygen gas ; this decomposes and pre- 
pares the food for organization into the living m.ass 
much faster ; and for this reason alone, a healthy child 
eats sometimes as much or more than an adult of four 
or six times his bulk, and grows, therefore, propor- 
tionably faster. This, too, is the reason why a child 
cannot bear the gnawlngs of hunger, and wants to eat 
oftener, and therefore sometimes becomes a source 
of extreme annoyance to the careful and economical 
provider who does not understand the cause. 

Owing to rapid breathing, "a bird, deprived of food, 
dies on the third day, while a serpent, with its slug- 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. 1 7/ 

gish respiration, can live without food three months, 
and longer," as has been proven by those enormous 
anacondas which have swallowed deers whole, and 
then lain torpid for whole months, while the food is 
undergoing the slow process of digestion. 

The reason why a laboring man requires more food 
than one who does not labor at all, is this : His res- 
piration is more rapid, and the volume of air is greater 
at each respiration. The amount of oxygen, there- 
fore, being greater, a larger amount of food is of 
course burned or decomposed by that oxygen, and so 
a greater amount is necessary to supply the exhaus- 
tion. It is worthy of remark, also, that the pulsations 
of the blood are proportionably quickened by the in- 
spired oxygen, which shows that it imparts caloric or 
electricity to the fluid in proportion as it is inhaled. 

A thousand other facts upon this subject, respecting 
the reason why we require more food in the winter 
than in the summer — why the inhabitants of the 
polar regions eat more and heartier than those in the 
torrid — why a child requires more sleep than an 
adult, and a laboring man than an idle one — why 
sedentary persons are simultaneously afflicted with 
the loss of appetite and a disinclination to sleep — 
and why the blood of a person is just as warm in 
Nova Zembla as on the desert of Sahara — mii^ht be 
enumerated until this fruitful subject alone should 
extend out into a volume. Our limits, however, 
forbid an extension. Suffice it, therefore, to remark, 
that all these facts, and many others which might be 
enumerated, result from certain invariable chemical 
changes wrought by the electric agent. 

M 



178 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

As, in another part of this lecture, we have given 
the phenomena of a diseased body, when minus, and 
suggested the appropriate remedies, we will now, for 
a moment, take into consideration one charged plus, 
or a person afflicted with a raging fever. Some of the 
symptoms are a flushed countenance, turgid veins, a 
parched tongue, a headache owing to a rush of blood 
to that region, quickened and violent pulsation, rapid 
and labored breathing, and a hot, dry, husky surface. 
And now what are the chemical causes and the ap- 
propriate chemical remedies for such a state of the 
system ? Owing to a cold or some other cause, the 
natural, healthful perspiration of the body, by which 
a proper electrical condition expels certain impurities, 
is checked and entirely stopped by the closing of the 
pores. The consequence is that those impurities 
enter in and derange the circulation, are carried by 
that circulation through the lungs, and there come in 
contact with the oxygen. These impurities are 
burned fiercely by that agent, the heat enters into the 
system — both the pulsation and the respiration are 
quickened ; this increases the amount of oxygen until 
the blood is almost made to boil, and the difficulty is 
increased until the disease is either checked or else 
terminates in death. 

Now, what are the appropriate remedies for this 
plus condition of the system ? Why, evidently minus, 
cooling substances. The acids should be freely ad- 
ministered, and such alteratives as shall remove the 
cause, uncap the closed pores, make the impurities 
exude again in their accustomed channels, and thus 
prevent the oxygen from burning up the system by 



ANIMAL ELECTRICITY, ETC. 1 79 

its fierce ignition of those impurities in the lungs. 
Those internal remedies should evidently be always 
aided by such external applications as are calculated 
to accomplish the object, such as bathing, and friction 
with such volatile liquids as will evaporate rapidly 
and carry off the surplus caloric, which have the 
tendency to aid in producing perspiration. 

In our closing lecture of this series we shall have 
occasion to make a few additional remarks upon this 
interesting subject ; but feeling that it is impossible 
to do justice to it in a work so limited, we intend, so 
soon as we shall have sufficient leisure, to publish a 
volume devoted entirely to the subject of animal 
electricity and electric pathology. 



LECTURE IX. 
ELECTRO-MAGNETISM. 

AMONG other important designs, it is our object, 
by the present course of lectures, to prove the 
identity of all the imponderables. One very essential 
link in the chain of evidence will be furnished by the 
investigation of Electro-Magnetism. Until recently 
it was supposed to be an agent entirely distinct and 
different from electricity. But it is now satisfactorily 
proven to be the same thing in essence. 

This agent of nature was first discovered in a certain 
ore, found upon Mount Ida, in Asia Minor, by one 
Magnes, a shepherd, from whose name the word 
magnetism is derived. This ore is called, by min- 
eralogists, magnetic iron or'e, or in common parlance, 
the load-stone. 

The singular and wonderful powers which it ex- 
hibited in holding with considerable tenacity the 
various metals first led to its development. It was 
also ascertained that it would not only exert an 
invisible and unaccountable influence over metals, but 
that it would impart to steel permanently the same 
kind of mysterious influence. 

No wonder that this ore was regarded by some as 
a talismanic or a magic rock, in the earlier ages, 
when the idea prevailed to a considerable extent that 

1 80 



ELECTRO-MAGNETISM. l8l 

unearthly beings could throw their spells of enchant- 
ment around substances. 

It was next discovered that if steel bars, which had 
been thus magnetized by the loadstone, were suspended 
at the centre by a thread or balanced upon a pivot, 
they would invariably arrange themselves north and 
south. This led to the invention, as is supposed, by 
Flavio da Melfi, a Neapolitan, in 1302, of that im- 
portant instrument called the Mariner's Compass, 
which opened a new era in navigation. Mrs. Somer- 
ville, however, thinks different. She thus speaks in 
the following extract : 

" The inventor of the mariner's compass, like most 
of the early benefactors of mankind, is unknown ; it 
is even doubted which nation first made use of mag- 
netic polarity to determine positions on the surface 
of the globe ; but it is said that a rude form of the 
compass was invented in Upper Asia, and conveyed 
thence by the Tartars to China, where the Jesuit 
missionaries found traces of this instrument having 
been employed as a guide to land travellers in very 
remote antiquity. From that the compass spread 
over the east, and was imported into Europe by the 
Crusaders, and its construction improved by an artist 
of Amalfi, on the coast of Calabria. It seems that the 
Romans and Chinese only employed eight cardinal 
divisions, which the Germans successively bisected 
till there were thirty-two, and gave the points the 
names which they still bear." 

Before this auspicious event, the wary seaman 
cautiously coasted along the shore, and dared not 
venture far from land upon the ocean, whore the 
16 



1 82 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

foaming waste of waters seemed to him an impassable 
barrier. But the compass changed the whole scene. 
With it the mariner fearlessly spread his canvass to 
the breezes, although assured that they would quickly 
hurry him away from the sight of his native shores 
and mountains. Guided by his faithful magnet, he 
left the coast, to which he had formerly clung so 
timidly, ''far, far behi?td him" and sometimes held 
his onward course for weeks, and even months, 
through the wide waste of waters, without a glimpse 
of land to tell him where he was, and yet so perfect 
was that guidance, that, at any given moment, he 
could tell the latitude and longitude of the spot he 
occupied. 

One important effect of that invention was the dis- 
covery of the happy country where we now dwell • 
for, had it not been for the unerring guidance of the 
magnet, through calm and through storm, Columbus, 
notwithstanding his skill in navigation and the daunt- 
less intrepidity of his character, could never have 
found his way across the ocean from Europe to His- 
paniola. 

The cause of magnetism was, for centuries after its 
discovery, enveloped in inscrutable mystery. But, by 
the recent experiments and investigations of philoso- 
phers, that mystery has been satisfactorily solved. 
About sixty years ago it was ascertained by the cele- 
brated Beccaria, and by our sagacious countryman, 
Dr. Franklin, that steel and iron could be rendered 
magnetic by electricity. Since then, by the conclu- 
sive experiments of Professor Oersted, of Copenhagen, 
Professor Moll, of Utrecht, M. De la Rive, of Geneva. 



ELECTR 0-MA GNE TISM. 1 8 3 

M. Arago, of Paris, Dr. Wollaston, Sir Humphrey 
Davy, Mr. Faraday, Dr. Herschel, Mr. Christie, and 
many other philosophers of Europe, together with 
those of Professor Henry, Dr. Hare, Professor Silli- 
man, and others of our own country, it has been 
demonstrated, beyond the shadow of a reasonable 
doubt, that all magnetism is produced by electricity. 

Professor Oersted, in 1 8 19, found that, by passing 
a current of galvanism around iron of a certain qual- 
ity, by means of insulated copper wire, it was made 
strongly magnetic, and exhibited north and south 
polarity, — one extremity of the iron attracting the 
north point of the needle, and the other the south. 
It was also ascertained that by passing a galvanic 
current around steel in the same way, it could be 
made permanently magnetic, the same as if rubbed 
upon the loadstone. 

In the language of Mrs. Somerville, "very delicate 
experiments have shown that all bodies are more or 
less susceptible of magnetism. Many of the gems 
give signs of it — cobalt, titanium, and nickel some- 
times even possess the properties of attraction and 
repulsion ; but the magnetic agency is most power- 
fully developed in iron, and in that particular ore of 
iron called the loadstone, which consists of the prot- 
oxide and the peroxide of iron, together with small 
portions of silica and alumina. A metal is often sus- 
ceptible of magnetism if it only contains the 130,000th 
part of its weight of iron, a quantity too small to be 
detected by any mechanical test. 

"The bodies in question are natural!}" magnetic, 
but that property may be imparted b\- a variety of 



184 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

methods, as by friction with magnetic bodies, or 
juxtaposition to them, but none is more simple than 
percussion. A bar of hard steel, held in the direction 
of the dip, will become a magnet on receiving a few 
smart blows with a hammer on its upper extremity; 
and M. Hansteen has ascertained that every sub- 
stance has magnetic poles when held in that posi- 
tion, whatever the materials may be of which it is 
composed." 

It would be impossible, for the want of both time 
and room, to enter into a detail of the rise and pro- 
gress of the science of magnetism, and trace the suc- 
cession of various improvements made by the investi- 
gations of the learned. We must, therefore, content 
ourselves v/ith a few brief remarks, in addition to 
what we have already said. 

A variety of experiments have been made by many 
of the learned, at different intervals, " but the most 
astonishing ever exhibited to the world in the pro- 
duction of magnetism by galvanic currents, are those 
performed by Professor Henry and Dr. Ten Eyck, of 
Albany, in 1831. They constructed a horseshoe 
magnet of Swedish iron, weighing sixty-nine and a 
half pounds, with an armature weighing twenty-three 
pounds. Around this magnet they wound twenty- 
six strands of copper bell-wire, each thirty-one feet 
long, making eight hundred and six feet in the whole. 
About eighteen inches of the ends of the wire were 
left projecting, so that the aggregate length of the 
coils was seven hundred and twenty-eight feet. On 
connecting the wires with a battery of four and seven- 
ninths square feet, the magnet supported two thousand 



ELECTRO-MAGNETISM. 1 85 

and sixty-three pounds. In one experiment with a 
smaller battery, the armature continued to support 
more than one hundred and fifty pounds three days 
after the battery had been excited. 

From experiments already made, there seems to be 
no limit to the extent to which this wonderful power 
can be increased by the increase of the size of the 
magnet, and the increase of the number of coils of 
wire. 

How incomprehensible the force here exhibited — 
how disproportionate seems the cause to the effect ! 
When the iron is bent, and wrought into its proper 
form, and wound with the requisite quantity of copper 
coils, it will not suspend a single ounce of itself. But 
just send a stream of electricity or galvanism around 
those coils, and, with its poles suspended downwards, 
it can be made to sustain four or five thousand pounds, 
without any visible chain of connection to hold the 
ponderous mass, and without having its own weight 
increased a single perceptible particle. This immense 
load is sustained there by no iron manacles, no 
hempen cord — hung there apparently upon nothing 
tangible, visible, or corporeal — sustained by the 
simple unaided ligaments of cohesive attraction. 
Who, after witnessing such an exhibition of incom- 
prehensible force, — who can doubt, for a moment, 
but that the powers of all other agents in nature are 
weak and impotent when compared with this ? Who 
can doubt, for a moment, but that, if its almost om- 
nipotent energies could be harnessed appropriately 
to machinery, by any invention, they would operate 
that machinery with a force as resistless as that 
16* 



1 86 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER, 

exhibited by the bolt of heaven ? Who can doubt 
but that its prodigious might is brought to bear upon 
the perfect machinery of the universe, and that it 
whirls the ponderous planets in their spheres and 
hurls the comet blazing through its lightning course ? 

Not only have magnets of great power been pro- 
duced by electricity, but, quite recently, a surprising 
motive power has been developed upon a small scale. 
Miniature magnetic machines have been constructed, 
which would rotate upon their axis with a prodigious 
velocity, varying from five to fifteen hundred revolu- 
tions per minute, that being from three to five times 
as rapid as any revolutions produced by steam. 

There have been invented two different kinds of elec- 
tro-magnetic machines — the one operated by simple 
attraction, or by the influence of iron alternately mag- 
netized and demagnetized by alternately breaking and 
closing the galvanic circuit, as it is called ; and the 
other by attraction and repulsion, or a change of 
polarity, which is effected by such an arrangement 
that the galvanic current circulates half the time 
around the magnet in one direction and the other 
half in an opposite direction, whereby the poles of 
the magnet change alternately from south to north 
and from north to south, the polarity of the m.agnet 
being dependent upon the direction of the galvanic 
current around it. 

Motion was produced, in 1830, by means of a gal- 
vanic magnet, constructed by Professor Henry, and 
so arranged that it caused a beam, suspended by its 
centre, to vibrate like the walking-beam of a steam- 
engine. Taking an idea from this invention of Henry's, 



ELE CTR 0-MA GNE TISM. 1 8/ 

similar machinery was constructed in Europe. Mr. 
McGauly, of Ireland, reported, in 1835, a galvanic 
machine to the British Association, and Mr. Stur- 
geon^ of Woolwich, in England, gave a description, 
about the same time, of one which he used upon his 
premises for pumping water, and for other mechanical 
purposes. But rotary motion was first produced by 
Dr. Edmonson, of Baltimore. In 1833 or 1834, he 
constructed a very simple, but yet a very beautiful 
electro-magnetic machine, called Edmonson' s Rotating 
Armatures^ which was composed of a brass wheel, 
containing a small brass hub and an axle about four 
or five inches long, with six spokes of brass wire an 
eighth of an inch in diameter and six inches long, 
with soft iron armatures, composed of wire, a quarter 
of an inch in diameter and two inches long, screwed 
upon the ends of the spokes, and arranged parallel 
with the axle. Through two brass pillars on each 
side of the wheel, which was horizontal, passed two 
screws which formed pivots, upon which the wheel 
could revolve lightly and without much friction. At 
a little distance from one end of the axle was screwed 
a brass plate disc, about three inches in diameter, and 
at the same distance from the other end a serrated 
disc, containing as many points as there were spokes 
and armatures. These revolved in cups arranged un- 
derneath containing mercury. On the outside of the 
whole was placed a single electro-magnet of small 
size, which, when charged with a small battery, would 
attract the soft iron armatures successively toward 
itself, until they came to the point whore it would 
hold the iron and prevent motion, wore it not so 



188 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

arranged that the movement of the wheel would de- 
magnetize the magnet, by lifting the point of the ser- 
rated disc out of the cup of mercury, and thus by 
breaking the circuit explode the magnetism in a bril- 
liant galvanic spark and let the armature pass by. 
This wheel could be made to revolve from three to 
five hundred revolutions per minute. 

Although it has been generally supposed that 
Davenport first produced rotary motion, by means 
of magnetism, yet this honor, as we have shown, 
belongs to another, who invented his rotating arma- 
tures about three years before Mr. Davenport perfected 
his electro-magnetic machines. 

These rotating armatures of Edmonson are moved 
by simple attraction. But to Davenport belongs, 
however, the exclusive honor of inventing a machine 
move-d by alternate attraction and repulsion, which, 
for a time, astonished the whole scientific world, and 
inspired the general belief that the power of electro- 
magnetism was about to be brought to bear upon 
machinery. 

A brief detail of the several stages of progression 
by which Davenport perfected his invention, and dis- 
covered truths which had, for ages, eluded the keen- 
sightedness of the scientific, would doubtless be inter- 
esting to those who are unacquainted with the facts. 

Mr. Thomas Davenport was an unlettered black- 
smith, of Brandon, Rutland county, Vermont. In the 
course of his trade he went, in 1833, to the Penfield 
iron works, at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, to 
purchase iron. His curiosity was there very much 
excited by the operation of a revolving machine with 



ELECTR 0-MA GNE TISM. 1 89 

several hundred magnetized steel points or teeth, 
which passed through pulverized ore, to separate the 
particles of iron from the surrounding material. Find- 
ing, upon inquiry, that these points were magnetized 
by a small electro-magnet, weighing about four pounds, 
he inquired the price of the apparatus, and, instead of 
purchasing iron as he contemplated, he expended his 
money for the magnet and took it home. Filled with 
that kind of enthusiasm which completely absorbs 
some minds, and which appears superlative folly and 
mental hallucination to those dull phlegmatics who 
always plod along in the beaten path of grandfathers 
and great-grandfathers, he commenced a series of ex- 
periments with his magnet, assuring his neighbors 
and friends that it was his firm belief that this power 
could be made to propel the largest boats. Although 
this announcement was received by them with general 
incredulity and ridicule, and although he had to en- 
counter every discouragement on account of deficiency 
in his pecuniary resources and the continual dissuasion 
of his acquaintances, he pressed forward with a com- 
mendable and indomitable perseverance toward the 
accomplishment of his object. 

It is proved by all history that a mind which is 
truly inventive, and capable of conceiving grand pro- 
jects, has the dignity to rise above the influence of 
both sneers and dissuasions, and to accomplish such 
projects, if they be within the range of possibility. 
Such was the mind of Thomas Davenport. lie was 
neither discouraged nor disappointed by the reception 
he experienced. ** He thought and reasoned for him- 
self; and, relinquishing his trade, he devoted his 



1 90 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER, 

undivided attention to the object in view. After 
trying hundreds of experiments, and devoting several 
months to an intensity of reflection which would have 
brought many others to a lunatic asylum, he finally, 
in July, 1834, accomplished the arduous task of bring-- 
ing the invisible and mysterious power of magnetism 
into subjection — a power which, 'steady as the 
needle to the pole,' had been thought the most un- 
yielding of all others ; forming an arrangement by 
which this very polarity, this steadiness of purpose, 
is made to produce rotary motion." 

After encountering many hindrances, Davenport 
perfected, so far as it was possible to perfect, his 
miniature machines so that they would revolve with 
almost inconceivable velocity. They consisted, some- 
times, of both stationary and revolving magnets, so 
arranged that, by their movements, the polarity of the 
magnets would instantaneously change at a certain 
point, and thus the machines would be alternately 
propelled by attraction and repulsion, resulting from 
a change of that polarity. 

As it would, by mere language, without the appa- 
ratus, be impossible to give such a description of the 
machinery as to convey a clear idea of the precise 
manner of its arrangement (by which polarity is 
changed during revolution) to the minds of those 
who have never seen it operate, and, as it would be 
unnecessary to give such a description for the satis- 
faction of those who have seen it operate, we shall 
omit it altogether. 

After having perfected his machines upon a small 
scale, so that they performed admirably, he proceeded 



ELECTR 0~MA GNE TISM. 1 9 1 

to construct one upon a larger scale, for the -purpose 
of acquiring power, if possible. But in this experiment 
he was unsuccessful, and the persevering originator 
of a wonderful invention has passed into obscurity 
again, like a flashing meteor, and is now almost 
forgotten. 

When he proceeded to enlarge his machinery, he 
met with an unexpected and insurmountable difficulty, 
in the impossibility of so nicely arranging it that the 
polarity would change perfectly at the proper point 
and time, and the one force give place completely to 
the other. There would, on the contrary, be, at that 
point, a contention between the two powers of attrac- 
tion and repulsion, which contention would neutralize 
the powers of the two, and bring the machine to a 
stand. 

While investigating, in 1838, this interesting subject, 
we were satisfied that machines operated by a change 
of polarity could never be anything but mere philo- 
sophical toys, interesting and wonderful, but entirely 
useless. It occurred to us, however, that the difficulty 
could be obviated by machines operated by simple 
attraction, provided that there could be an arrange- 
ment made by which the powers should be kept up 
without intermission. This we effected by bringing 
a series of magnets to bear upon the same wheel, in 
such a manner that, by means of non-conductors be- 
tween the serrated discs, by wliich the galvanic circuit 
was broken, one circle of the series should be charged 
while another was demagnetized, and so the power 
continued without intermission. Having been quite 
successful- in the first model constructed, we sent a 



1 92 A NE W PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

description of the same to the Patent Office at Wash- 
ington in 1838, designing at the time to have taken 
out a patent and to have tested the invention upon a 
large scale, but other engagements have prevented 
the contemplated experiment. 

As far as this mysterious and wonderful motive 
power has been applied, it can be regarded only as a 
most interesting philosophical toy. But the question 
here occurs — can it be applied to any practical pur 
pose — can machinery, upon a large scale, where great 
resistance is to be overcome, be propelled by it? 
This remains to be proven. We are not prepared to 
say that it cannot^ nor are we prepared to say that it can. 
Of one thing we have a practical demonstration, — it 
operates well upon a small scale, and exhibits con- 
siderable force. Whether it will upon a large scale 
depends upon the developments of futurity. 

Rotary motion was produced by steam fifty years 
before it was applied to any practical or useful purpose. 
Its miniature machinery was then looked upon as an 
interesting philosophical plaything, as electro-mag- 
netic machinery now is. It has been only about ten 
years since the motive power of magnetism on a 
small scale was developed, and it would be forming 
a conclusion with more dogmatic positiveness than 
we are willing to form one, to hazard the assertion 
that locomotives may not, within fifty, nay, within 
twenty years, be driven with lightning speed over 
our railroads by magnetism, and the electric boat, 
instead of the steam boat, be propelled across the 
Atlantic. There are a thousand improvements yet 
to be made which have not even been dreamed of by 



ELECTR 0-MA GNE TISM. 193 

the most acute philosophers. Some Davenport may- 
even now be perfecting machinery which may, by its 
successful operation, astonish the world as much as 
the motive power of magnetism did when first devel- 
oped. There is certainly no lack of energy in the 
agent. Its inherent force surpasses steam, or any 
other natural agent. There is a superabundance of 
power, as is demonstrated by the magnet of Professor 
Henry. Its correct application is all that is needed, 
and we are by no means prepared to say that such 
an application cannot be made. From what we have 
seen, we are rather inclined to believe that it can, and 
that it will, although the person who is hardy enough 
to persevere may encounter as many sneers as the 
immortal Robert Fulton did before he succeeded in 
applying steam power to navigation. 

We will close this lecture by remarking that, as 
our object is to prove the identity of all the impon- 
derables, and that they are electricity, magnetism aids 
materially to demonstrate this, from the fact that a 
galvanic current will make a magnet, and out of 
magnets can be drawn both electric sparks and electric 
shocks, as in the operation of the magneto-electric 
machine. 

17 N 



LECTURE X. 
LIGHT. 

HAVING examined the subject of common 
electricity, galvanism, magnetism, and other 
kindred subjects, and proved their identity, and de- 
monstrated that this indivisible, imponderable prin- 
ciple is the wondrous agent by which all chemical 
changes are effected, we shall now endeavor, by a 
formidable array of facts, and by conclusions drawn 
legitimately from them, to prove that the sun is the 
SOURCE of this agent. This will require us, in the 
first place, to investigate the properties of solar light. 
This, it is evident, is to be regarded as the fountain 
from which continually flows all natural light, for, it 
will appear conclusively in the course of our observa- 
tions, that it would be utterly impossible to produce 
fire were it not for the existence of this agent. And 
here an interesting question respecting its nature 
and essential properties forcibly suggests itself to the 
mind — What is that light ? It seems to be a subtle, 
ethereal, all-pervading fluid. No sooner does it glance 
upon a substance than it is gone. Suddenly darken 
a room into which a strong flood of light is pouring, 
and it is all dissipated as instantaneously as thought. 
Not a solitary ray is left to illuminate the darkness. 
Blow out a candle, whose light can be seen by the 

194 



LIGHT. 195 

eye at any point for a mile in every direction around 
it, and which, therefore, completely fills several cubic 
miles of space, and not the minutest iota of time does 
that light continue after the candle is extinguished. 
A thunder-bolt blazes across the black canopy of a 
midnight of storm, and its scathing light fills perhaps 
a thousand cubic miles of space. Blinded by the 
intense and lurid glare, the eye of the beholder shuts 
for an instant, and opens — upon what ? A darkness 
deeper, if possible, by contrast, than before. The 
lurid flash has gone — where? Is it annihilated? 
No. It is somewhere in a state of diffusion and con- 
sequent invisibility, and if collected under the same 
circumstances, it would exhibit the same flash as 
before, and again diffuse itself through the mass of 
surrounding substances. Light, then, as we have 
already remarked, is subtle, ethereal, and all-pervading. 

It is imponderable too — that is, it can be neither 
weighed nor measured. When a ponderable substance 
of several tons bulk is completely saturated with it, 
the specific gravity of that substance is not increased 
the smallest perceptible particle. 

Never, for an instant, is this subtle agent stationary. 
The lightning speed of its everlasting career can be 
compared with no other agent in nature except elec- 
tricity. It glances quick as thought from heaven to 
earth — from the sun to the planets. 

There are two theories respecting the substance or 
essentiality of light, both of which will, for a moment, 
be examined. Dr. Herschel and his coadjutors sup- 
posed that it was the effect of the undulation or 
vibration of a subtle, ethereal medium cvcr\-whore 



ig6 A NE IV PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

present in nature, and that it is transmitted to the 
eye the same as sound is to the ear. Upon this 
hypothesis there would be no direct communication 
between the sun and the earth, or the other attendant 
planets, and this being the case, the generally received 
opinion among philosophers, that the movements of 
the planets are governed by a certain kind of influence 
exerted by the sun over them, would be erroneous ; 
for we hold it to be a truth capable of the clearest 
and most logical demonstration, that there cannot be 
any influence exerted by one substance over another, 
without a direct and positive connection of some sort 
between those two substances. To suppose the con- 
trary, would be to suppose that there is a connection 
and that there is not a connection in the same breath, 
which is a self-evident contradiction in terms. We 
hold such an influence, without such an actual con- 
nection, to be an impossibility in the nature of things, 
which, to speak reverentially, not even Ommipotence 
can overcome, for God himself never claims to do that 
which is an impossibility in the nature of things. But 
it may be said that the Almighty created the universe 
with a word, and that there is no positive connection 
between a mere word and such a stupendous effect. 
True ; but if He created that universe with a word, his 
all-pervading Omnipotence was present to give that 
word efficiency ; for to suppose the contrary, would 
be to suppose that God can withdraw himself from a 
positive connection with his own agencies, which is 
another self-evident contradiction, unless you can 
undeify the Deity and make infinity finite. 

Besides, the opinions of Dr. Herschel upon this 



LIGHT. 197 

subject are unphilosophical and contrary to known 
facts. Instead of undulating or vibrating, light moves 
in direct lines. This is capable of positive proof. 
The angle of incidence and that of reflection are the 
same. Let a stream of light fall upon a mirror at a 
particular angle, and it will be reflected from that 
mirror in an exactly opposite angle. It is a tested 
and acknowledged fact, also, that light will not pass 
through a bent tube. But if it moved in undulations 
or vibrations like sound, this would not be the case, 
for sound will pass through such a tube. These facts 
and arguments, therefore, prove that the hypothesis 
of Dr. Herschel respecting light is false and unphilo 
sophical. 

The other theory of which we spoke is that of Sir 
Isaac Newton. It was the opinion of that great phi- 
losopher, that solar light is an infinitesimal effluvia 
of matter, or an emanation of inconceivably minute 
particles flying off from the body of the sun, and 
darting in straight lines through that space which is 
occupied by those opaque bodies which are governed 
by its influences. This hypothesis we consider to be 
correct and philosophical, if we regard it as an ema- 
nation of matter, different in its nature and essential 
properties from ponderable, inert matter — if we 
regard it as an imponderable essence, as it doubtless 
is, governed by the very same laws, and exerting pre- 
cisely the same agencies as the other imponderables, 
which we have already examined. Newton, however, 
left some things unexplained in his theory of solar 
emanation which, unless satisfactorily accounted for, 
would involve the subject in an inexplicable difficulty. 
17* 



198 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

Although he maintained the opinion that light was 
constituted by a flight of particles from the sun, and 
thus far was doubtless correct, yet he neglected or 
failed to account for the supply of that waste of the 
substance of the sun which must unavoidably be the 
consequence. The objector to his theory who might, 
wish to puzzle the philosopher, might put the ques- 
tion, " If light be an emanation of infinitesimal atoms 
or particles of matter from the orb of day, why is it 
not diminished — why not exhausted and blotted 
out?" And such a question too would be a very 
natural one, and deserving of attentive consideration. 
Light is constantly emanating from the sun. This is 
a known and a generally acknowledged fact in science. 
Every conceivable point of space for ninety-five mil- 
lions of miles around that luminary to the orbit of our 
earth, and so around the whole circumference of that 
orbit, is constantly filled with this light ; and as light 
is estimated to move from the sun to the earth in 
eight minutes, then this whole entire ocean of light, 
one hundred and eighty millions of miles in diameter 
and nearly five hundred and forty millions of miles 
in circumference, containing billions upon billions of 
cubic miles of light diffused over space, is displaced 
every eight minutes by a new emanation — a fresh 
ocean of light, and that by the flood-tides of another 
ocean, and that by another, and so on to infinity. 

Nor is this all. The whole space between us and 
the far-off orb of Herschel is thus constantly filled 
with light, and that light is thus constantly displaced 
by wave succeeding wave in endless succession. 

Now the idea that this is matter which is thus 



LIGHT. 199 

passing off from the sun with the glance of the light- 
ning-flash, and filling every eight minutes an almost 
inconceivable area of space, would be preposterous in 
the extreme, unless there were, by some process of 
nature, an adequate supply for such an immense and 
unavoidable waste. This conclusion is in strict ac- 
cordance with every principle of philosophy, analogy, 
and fact. It is perfectly evident that particles flying 
off from a body must inevitably diminish that body. 
No matter how infinitesimally minute those particles, 
nor how immensely large the substance, this must be 
the case, so long as the smallest atom of matter con- 
ceivable possesses both length, breadth, and thick- 
ness. 

It can, then, be mathematically demonstrated, as 
perfectly as any problem of Euclid ever was, that the 
sun, unsupplied from some source, would long since 
have been frittered away by infinitesimal abstractions, 
and been utterly annihilated by this waste, even though 
we should, for the sake of argument, adopt the sup- 
position that a million of cubic acres of those particles, 
when condensed sufficiently, should weigh no more 
than the ten thousandth part of a single grain ; for, 
however vast in magnitude be the substance, such a 
diminution as must take place by an emanation of 
particles so immense as to fill a cubic bulk of space 
one hundred and eighty millions of miles in diameter, 
and nearly five hundred and forty millions of miles 
in circumference, every eight minutes, must certainly 
annihilate that substance completely in process of 
time. As *'a continual dropping wears away the 
solid rock," so a continual waste must eventually 



200 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

exhaust — completely and utterly exhaust — even the 
bulkiest mass conceivable. 

If light, then, be the emanation of infinitesimal 
effluvia from the sun, as it doubtless is, how shall we 
rescue the Newtonian theory from the difficulties in 
which it seems to be involved ? We must suppose 
either that there is, somehow, an unseen and imper- 
ceptible return of those particles to the source from 
whence they emanated, or that that great fount of 
light is constantly fed by creative agency constantly 
exerted, or else, as the horrid alternative, that the 
world would long since have realized the terrific 
phantasies of Byron's poetic dream on darkness, 
when — 

" The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air." 

The latter alternative we know, however, has not 
taken place, and the proposition that the waste is 
supplied by direct creative agency, is contrary to all 
the analogies of divine economy. When the Al- 
mighty created the universe, he created also, it is 
presumed, all the natural laws and agencies by which 
that universe should be governed, until the present 
order of things shall be broken up by the same 
Omnipotent word and energy which established it, 
and 

" Final ruin fiercely drive her ploughshare o'er creation." 

He did not leave his work half done. He completed 
creation — He pronounced the whole good, very 



LIGHT. 20I 

good, and on the seventh day He rested from his 
labor. It cannot be presumed that the process of 
creating new materials to supply any deficiency in 
this splendid machinery of worlds is now progressing. 
The supposition would be derogatory to the skill of 
the great Architect. It would be contrary to the 
analogy of all his doings. Although there are con- 
tinual changes going forward in the materials of which 
this globe and its surrounding atmosphere is con- 
structed — although there be a ceaseless progression 
of chemical decomposition and recom.position among 
various substances — although what was a tree one 
year may, by transformation, become glass the next 
— or what was grass one day may become either 
flesh or milk or cheese or butter the next — or what 
was fish in one age may be petrified into limestone 
the next, and, instead of floating in the water, become 
the material with which your parlors are plastered, 
yet it is presumed that not a single new particle has 
been added to the globe or its varied furniture since 
creation, however modified it may have been, either 
by nature or art. One might imagine, perhaps, that 
in the combustion of fuel there is some destruction 
of material. But such is not the fact. It has only 
undergone a change. Every particle of it exists some 
where, either in vapor or smoke or the gases, or in 
ashes. And so with everything else. When the 
streams dry up in the season of drought, there is not 
a drop the less water than before. It is either in the 
deep well-springs of the earth, or is borne about in 
the vapors of the atmosphere ; nor is there a drop 
more when the streams arc full, nor was there when 



202 A NEW PHIL OSOPH V OF MA TTER. 

the windows of heaven were opened, and the fountains 
of the great deep were broken up, and the deluge 
covered fifteen fathoms deep the tops of the highest 
mountains. It was either spouted up from the sub- 
terraneous reservoirs of earth, or the surrounding 
atmosphere, which extends forty-five miles above the 
globe, gave out its watery treasures, or the melted 
icebergs came down in torrents from the Arctic and 
Antarctic seas. 

From these analogies, and a thousand others unmen- 
tioned, we infer that no creation of material is pro- 
gressing to supply the waste of the sun. Shall we 
then resort to the other hypothesis, that the other- 
wise unavoidable diminution of the sun is supplied 
by the return, through some channel, of those same 
particles, which have accomplished the object of 
their mission ? 

Let us see what testimony analogy furnishes upon 
this important subject, before we hazard an answer. 
The human body affords a good illustration. The 
heart sends out the vital stream by successive pulsa- 
tions, through its purple channels, to the extremities 
of the system, and is in its turn supplied by that same 
blood which it sent out in its passage back through 
the little veins, to be again projected by the self 
moved action of the wondrous machine. 

The waters of the globe afford another very good 
illustration. The ocean is, as it were, the heart of 
the earth. By evaporation it supplies the clouds with 
water, this is borne over the globe and discharged 
among the mountainous regions, to supply the high 
lakes and fountains. These send forth the little rills 



LIGHT. 203 

and streams, which, uniting in their course, form 
rivers, which empty into the ocean again and keep 
that immense reservoir unexhausted. Now, what the 
heart is to the human body, or the ocean to the globe, 
I conceive the sun to be to the solar system. By its 
mighty pulsations, it sends out its living stream to 
vitalize and energize creation, and when one pulsation 
has done its work, and given its share of the mantling 
blush of health to the cheek of beauty, and of luxuri- 
ance to the verdure of vegetation, and of varied tints 
to the flower, and of ripeness to the mellow fruits, 
and of motion to the planets, it speeds on in its 
lightning circuit, and gives place to another pulsation, 
and thus pulsation after pulsation chase each other in 
one interminable and ceaseless round, supplying by 
some inexplicable method of return the waste which 
must otherwise accrue. 

We have considered the Newtonian theory of the 
materiality of light as correct, though not matter, in 
the common acceptation of the term, for it is totally 
different from any tangible, appreciable form of m,atter 
with which we are acquainted — being imponderable 
and immeasurable, passing through transparent me- 
diums without seeming to encounter any obstacle — ■ 
entering readily into the eye, the tenderest and most 
delicate organ, without causing pain or being per- 
ceptible in its passage. The following appropriate 
extract from Ferguson's Astronomy will forcibly 
illustrate the extreme subtlety and imponderability 
of this agent: — "Light consists oi exceeding small 
particles of matter issuing from a luminous body ; as 
from a lighted candle such particles of matter con- 



204 A NEW PHIL O SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

stantly flow in all directions. Dr. Niewentyt"*^ com- 
putes that in one second of time there flows 418,660,- 
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000, 000, 000 
particles of light put of a burning candle ; which 
number contains at least 6,337,242,000,000 times the 
number of grains of sand in the whole earth, supposing 
100 grains of sand to be equal in length to an inch, 
and consequently, every cubic inch of the earth to 
contain one million of such grains. 

" These amazingly small particles, by striking upon 
our eyes, excite in our minds the idea of light ; and, 
if they were as large as the smallest particles of 
matter discernible by our best microscopes, instead 
of being serviceable to us, they would soon deprive 
us of sight by the force arising from their immense 
velocity, which is above 164,000 miles every second, f 
or 1,230,000 times swifter than the motion of a cannon- 
bullet And, therefore, if the particles of light were 
so large that a million of them were equal in bulk to 
an ordinary grain of sand, we durst no more open 
our eyes to the light than sufler sand to be shot point 
blank against them." 

Now, with respect to extreme subtlety, does not 
light resemble electricity ? Is there any other agent 
in nature which will pass thus through the eye with- 
out affecting it except electricity, for that will thus 
pass ? Let a pointed rod be connected with an 
electric machine, and a stream projected through the 
eye from that point will cause no more pain than light 
— though differently modified. And if light be elec- 

* Religious Philosopher, Vol. III. p. 65. 

•j- This will be demonstrated in the eleventh chapter. 



LIGHT. 205 

triclty, there would then be an additional argument 
in favor of the supposition that emanations of this 
fluid return again to their source — the sun — as all 
electricity, however modified, moves in a circuit, and 
exhibits no effect except the circuit is closed. 

This is doubtless a novel idea, and may, for that 
reason alone, be considered, at first thought, chimer- 
ical and baseless. But we only ask calm reflection 
upon the subject, and candid attention to it, for we 
are persuaded that, after mature consideration, it will 
not appear so visionary as may at first glance be 
supposed. If it perform a circuit, it must be so 
immense as to be almost beyond computation. To 
illustrate this subject, trace a single ray, for instance, 
in its passage from the sun out into space for millions 
upon millions of miles, and there would be a point 
in its outward passage, and its consequent continual 
divergence, that the ultimate particles which consti- 
tuted that ray must of necessity begin to separate 
from each other. Now, when they come to that point 
of incipient separation, what becomes of them ? If 
they make a complete circuit, as we believe they do, 
the ultimate particles which composed the ray would, 
when they began to separate, (if they have the same 
organic laws as electricity, which we shall prove,) 
present their negative or minus polarity toward the 
sun, and, in that separated state, they would be drawn 
back to their source by the simple laws of the attrac- 
tion of opposite polarities, which we have already 
abundantly demonstrated. 

But it may be affirmed that, as light moves in 
18 



206 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

straight lines, one part of our theory clashes with 
another, since, according to this view of the subject, 
it must move in curved lines. This apparent clashing, 
however, is very easily explained, and this objection 
readily obviated. So inconceivably immense is that 
orbit which is described by a ray, that, although it is 
actually circular, yet any perceptible part of the orbit 
which it describes would appear to be straight to us, 
and thus there be no clashing between the two posi- 
tions in reality. 

It would be very easy, we are aware, for a fruitful 
imagination to invent objections, but before our con- 
clusions be confidently and positively denied, we would 
ask those who would invent such objections, to tell us 
what becomes of light if it does not thus move in a 
circuit, and thus return to its source. Is it annihilated, 
or does it become stagnated and dormant, and lose 
its inherent activity in the vast abyss of space ? And 
if it move not thus, and return, we would ask those 
who invent such objections, if they are prepared, in 
any other plausible or rational way, to account for the 
otherwise unavoidable waste of the material of the 
sun ? If they can, we will willingly become learners, 
and will pledge ourselves to give up all prepossessions 
in favor of any opinion which we may have harbored. 
But if they cannot, they are bound, we think, to con- 
sider well the propriety of making objections upon a 
subject when they know not positively whether their 
objections are well founded. Firmly believing, how- 
ever, that they cannot, we shall, for the present at 
least, adhere to the conclusions to which we have 
already come. 



LIGHT. 207 

Light then, doubtless, after having performed its 
office, returns to its fountain, and thus closes its cir- 
cuit. Else, what, I ask, becomes of it? Has the 
earth, for instance, drank in and retained all the light 
which has been shed upon it by the sun since crea- 
tion ? If it had, we conceive it to be a proposition 
capable of the clearest demonstration that it would 
have been, by this time, a complete ball of light like 
the sun. Besides, had it retained all the rays which 
have fallen upon it since the morning of time, its bulk 
ere this would have been very sensibly increased ; 
for, although light be imponderable, yet it is some- 
thing, and is capable of accumulation, like other 
matter, if retained. Not only would the earth be 
increased by this accumulation, but every planet of 
the solar system, and the sun, as every one must see, 
would be proportionably diminished. And what 
would be the consequence of such a diminution of 
the one and increase of the others ? Why, the perfect 
balance of the system, which produces such a won- 
derful regularity of revolution that eclipses can be 
foretold for years before their occurrence to the 
definiteness of a single moment, would be entirely 
destroyed, and the whole would rush headlong to the 
confusion and darkness of chaos. Neither the earth, 
therefore, nor the other bodies of the solar system, 
have retained the light which has fallen upon them, 
but having been as complctcl}^ saturated the first 
twenty-four hours of their existence as ever, they 
have thrown off all superabundance, the same as sub- 
stances do when surcharged with electricity. 

We have dwelt upon this subject of the return of 



208 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

particles to the sun with the more minuteness because, 
if true, it may account satisfactorily for an important 
phenomenon to which we shall have occasion to ad- 
vert hereafter. 

We shall defer until our next lecture the further 
consideration of this important and interesting sub- 
ject, and hope, by still further argument and proof, 
to demonstrate the correctness of our position. 



LECTURE XI. 

LIGHT AND HEAT. 

THE commencement of the present lecture will be 
the continuation of the subject of the identity 
of solar light and electricity. In the discussion of 
the subject, such a chain of proof will, we think, be 
linked together as to be conclusive and irresistibly 
convincing. 

As the correctness of our theory depends mainly 
upon the demonstration of the proposition that light 
is electricity, we will proceed in the examination of 
proofs. The two possess many properties in common. 
Light, generally speaking, is attended with heat — so 
is electricity. Light has inconceivable rapidity of 
motion — so has electricity. The one is imponder- 
able, immeasurable, all-pervading — equally so is the 
other. And what if they do vary in some of their 
appearances — vary in some of their effects and oper- 
ations ? Docs that circumstance necessarily destroy 
their identity — their oneness in principle or in 
essence? Certainly not. Known and acknowledged 
electricities thus vary, and that, too, quite as widely. 
The spark and the shock of the electric machine are 
somewhat different from the galvanic current ; the 
meteoric shower is different from the keen Ikish and 
fierce energy of the bursting thunderbolt; the blaze 
1 8* O 209 



210 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

of the thunderbolt is different from the mysterious 
corruscations of the Aurora Borealis and Aurora 
Australis, and these again are all different from mag- 
netism or magneto-electricity. Even the very same 
galvanic current, when modified by machinery, as can 
be demonstrated with a piece of apparatus, is different 
under one set of circumstances from what it is under 
another. If a person take hold of the poles of a small 
battery, and close the circuit, he receives no shock. 
But pass that same current around a helix of copper 
wire, inclosing soft iron, and forming v/hat is called 
the magneto-electric machine, and then, by the action 
of the machine, a person receives shocks whenever he 
closes the circuit, by taking hold of tin tubes having 
a connection by conducting wires with the positive 
and negative poles of the helix. This proves coitclu- 
sively that dissimilarity in appearance or in action 
destroy not identity or oneness in principle or in 
essence. This dissimilarity depends on modification, 
and on that alone, the causes of which are sometimes 
apparent and sometimes latent. The want, then, of 
resemblance in any respect between light and elec- 
tricity, destroys not necessarily their identity. And 
even on the score of similarity they are by no means 
materially deficient. There are, in fact, more points 
of marked resemblance between them than between 
many known and acknowledged electricities — more, 
for instance, than between the Aurora Borealis and 
magnetism. And were the attention of philosophers 
and chemists turned to the investigation of this sub- 
ject with all that intensity which its importance 
demands, we are persuaded that more resemblances 



LIGHT AND HEAT. ' 211 

still would be discovered. Who can tell but that if, 
by any means, an immense number of rays could be 
brought together into one line of light, as they are 
brought to a focus by the lens or burning-glass, and 
could they be continued onward in that line without 
being scattered — who can tell, we say, but that this 
condensation of rays might be one continual stream 
of fire, like that of the electric fluid ? 

But a truce to supposition. We need not resort to 
hypothesis or conjectures to establish the plausibility, 
or even the logical certainty of our argument. We 
appeal to facts — incontrovertible facts, to prove that 
light is electricity. These facts we shall glean from 
the observations of practical men, which are prefer- 
able to any philosophical surmises or fine-spun specu- 
lations. 

Lieutenant Johnson, of the British navy, often 
noticed that a considerable variation of the needle of 
the compass was produced by the rays of the sun 
falling upon the glass which covers it. 

In support of this testimony, I have that of Mr. 
Harris, a resident of Ravenna, Portage county, Ohio, 
who had been a surveyor at the West more than 
twenty years, and who had often been engaged in 
running lines. In the commencement of his business 
he was often much troubled by the variation of the 
needle, and imputed it at first to the vicinity of iron 
ore, which is the popular solution generally given for 
such phenomena. But he noticed, after a while, that 
those variations occurred in a cloudless day, and just 
about noon, when the sun was v^crtical. Tlic idea 
occurred to him that it might be electricity, produced 



212 A A'EW PHIL OS PHY OF MA TTER. 

Upon the glass cover by the sun's rays. In order to 
test the correctness of that idea, when such variations 
occurred, he moistened the glass so as to dissipate 
the electricity, and found by so doing that the varia- 
tion was instantly prevented. Since that he affirms 
that he has been no more troubled with the supposed 
attraction of metallic substances, and his remedy is 
an infallible preventive of the variations that so much 
troubled him. 

Since we first commenced the particular investiga- 
tion of this subject, in 1838, we have had frequent 
opportunities to consult the oldest and most observing 
practical surveyors, and they have, without an excep- 
tion, in every instance corroborated the statements 
of Mr. Harris and Lieutenant Johnson. One whose 
name, for particular considerations, we shall omit, but 
who was as good authority, probably, as any one we 
have consulted, not only testified his firm belief in 
the cause assigned by Mr. Harris, but suggested the 
thought that both diurnal and annual variations of the 
needle might possibly be determined by the variations 
even of the thermometer. 

But s'ome may, perhaps, be willing to acknowledge 
the premises from which we started, but deny the 
validity of our conclusions. They may assent to the 
proposition that electricity causes such variations of 
the needle as we have been contemplating, and that 
electricity may be produced by the mere friction of 
the sun's rays upon the glass cover of the compass, 
but that it cannot be the sun-light itself This, how- 
ever, would be an assumption altogether unreasonable 
and unphilosophical. Even if produced by the friction 



LIGHT AND HE A T. 2 1 3 

of the rays, (which cannot be the case, since light 
passes so readily through a transparent medium 
without friction,) either the light or the glass must 
give out the electricity ; for in all cases where elec- 
tricity is developed by friction, either the rubber or 
substance rubbed produces it. The one substance 
that affects the other is, uniformly, the substance that 
ia the generating agent. Even if light, then, produces 
electricity by friction upon the cover, it, after all, 
develops it from its own substance, and so nothing is 
gained by the objector, nor are our conclusions at all 
impaired. 

In addition to these facts, which are of themselves 
sufficient to demonstrate that light is electricity, it 
has been ascertained by the celebrated Mrs. Somer- 
ville, of England, that by passing the sun's rays 
through a prism, and separating them by analyzation 
into the seven primitive colors, the blue color pos- 
sesses the power of imparting magnetism or polarity to 
the needle, and magnetism we now know to be electric- 
ity by experiments too conclusive to be controverted. 

There is another very important fact respecting the 
organic laws of the constitution of both light and 
electricity, which furnish additional and weighty tes- 
timony in favor of identity. The attractions of elec- 
tricity decrease in exact proportion as the squares o{ 
the distance increase, in receding from an electrified 
body. This is precisely, as we should suppose, the 
law of the divergence of light, and this law, which 
runs throughout all the imponderables, has its origin 
in the law of solar emanation or divergence, and the 
simple reason why the attraction of all bodies decrease 



214 A JVBIV PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

in proportion as the squares of the distance increase, 
is because the emanating influence of all bodies which 
constitute attraction obeys this law. 

The very strongest testimony, however, in proof 
of our proposition is contained in the phenomena of 
the polarization of light, by which it is demonstrated 
that every particle of light, as well as of electricity, 
has opposite polarities. This curious subject will be 
more fully examined when we come to the discussion 
of the subject of caloric. 

By a fair logical deduction, then, with facts ample 
to sustain it, we unhesitatingly infer that light is 
electricity. 

Heat or caloric comes next in the order of remark, 
and, in the investigation of this subject, we shall accu- 
mulate such an additional array of facts as shall estab- 
lish our proposition beyond the shadow of a doubt. 

The same arguments which would prove that light 
is an electric fluid are applicable also to the agent of 
heat. Heat, like light, is imponderable, subtle, ethe- 
real, and all-pervading. No obstacle can stay its 
passage. It insinuates itself between the particles of 
the densest bodies as though it were immaterial. Its 
power is prodigious — irresistible in its energies. It 
generates the tremendous power that propels the 
steamboat; and were it, or could it, by any means be 
confined in subterraneous volcanic caverns with bands 
strong enough, and there accumulated, it would, by 
the power of its expansive and explosive force, burst 
the solid globe to atoms, and send its shattered frag- 
ments in every direction through the vacuum that 
surrounds it. 



LIGHT AND HE A T. 2 1 5 

With a glass bulb and tube, for instance, one of the 
energies of heat can be forcibly demonstrated. By 
inverting it, and inserting the open end in a basin of 
water in its natural state, you will perceive no effect 
whatever. But by passing into the tube the subtle 
agent of caloric from a spirit-lamp, and again invert- 
ing it, you will see the water rise with great rapidity, 
and fill more than nineteen-twentieths of the tube. 
This shows that heat has the power to expel the 
atmosphere and occupy its stead. But the moment 
you attempt to confine it there, by closing the tube, 
it is gone, like a flash — gone like a viewless, incor- 
poreal, intangible thing, and the water rushes up to 
fill that vacuum. 

If all the imponderables, as we have assumed, be 
identical, then light and heat are the same — they co- 
exist and are inseparable. But it may occur to some 
one that those phosphorescent substances which emit 
light do not also emit heat, and that our position is 
therefore untenable. This conclusion is, however, 
altogether too hastily formed. It will be seen, by the 
following lucid extract from Turner, that heat is akv^ys 
necessary to make substances phosphorescent. 

" The chemical agency of artificial light is analogous 
to that from the sun. In general the former is too 
feeble for producing any visible effect ; but light of 
considerable intensity, such as that from ii^nitcd lime, 
darkens chloride of silver, and seems capable of ex- 
erting the same chemical agencies as solar light, 
though in a degree proportionate to its inferior 
brilliancy. 

" Light is emitted by some substances, either at 



2 1 6 A NEW PHIL OSOPH Y OF MA TTER. 

common temperatures or at a degree of heat dispro- 
portioned to the effect, giving rise to an appearance 
which is called phosphorescence. This is exemplified 
by a composition termed Canton's phosphorus, made 
by mixing three parts of calcined oyster-shells with 
one of the flowers of sulphur, and exposing the mix- 
ture for an hour to a strong heat in a covered crucible. 
The same property is possessed by chloride of calcium 
(Romberg's phosphorus), anhydrous nitrate of lime 
(Baldwin's phosphorus), some carbonates and sulphates 
of baryta, strontia, and lime, the diamond, some vari- 
eties of fluor-spar called chlorophane, apatite, boracic 
acid, borax, sulphate of potassa, sea-salt, and by many 
other substances. Scarcely any of these phosphori 
act unless they have been previously exposed to light ; 
for some, diffused day-light or even lamp-light will 
suffice ; while others require the direct solar light, or 
the light of an electric discharge. Exposure for a 
few seconds to sunshine enables Canton's phosphorus 
to emit light visible in a dark room for several hours 
afterwards. Warmth increases the intensity of light, 
or will renew it after it has ceased ; but it diminishes 
the duration. When the phosphorescence has ceased 
it may be restored, and in general for any number of 
times, by renewed exposure to sunshine ; and the 
same effect may be produced by passing electric dis- 
charges through the phosphorus. Some phosphori, 
as apatite and chlorophane, do not shine until they 
are gently heated ; and yet, if exposed to a red heat, 
they lose the property so entirely that exposure to 
solar light does not restore it. Mr. Pearsall has 
remarked that in these minerals the phosphorescence 



LIGHT AND HE A T. 2 1 7 

destroyed by heat is restored by electric discharges ; 
that specimens of fluor-spar, not naturally phospho- 
rescent, may be rendered so by electricity ; and that 
this agent exalts the energy of natural phosphori in a 
very remarkable degree. The theory of these phe- 
nomena, like that of light itself, is very obscure. 
They have been attributed to direct absorption of 
light and its subsequent evolution ; but the fact that 
the color of the light emitted is more dependent on 
the nature of the phosphorescent body than on the 
color of the light to which it was exposed, seems in- 
consistent with this explanation. Chemical action is 
not connected with the phenomena ; for the phosphori 
shine in vacuo, and in gases which do not act on 
them, and some even under water. 

"Another kind of phosphorescence is observable in 
some bodies when strongly heated. A piece of lime, 
for example, heated to a degree which would only 
make other bodies red, emits a brilliant white light 
of such intensity that the eye cannot support its im- 
pression. ^ 

" A third species of phosphorescence is observed 
in the bodies of some animals, either in the dead or 
living state. Some marine animals, and particularly 
fish, possess it in a remarkable degree. It may be 
witnessed in the body of the herring, which begins to 
phosphoresce a day or two after death, and before any 
visible sign of putrefaction has set in. Sea-water is 
capable of dissolving the luminous matter ; and it is 
probably from this cause that the waters of the ocean 
sometimes appear luminous at night when agitated. 
This appearance is also ascribed to the presence of 
19 



2 1 8 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

certain animalcules, which, like the glow-worm of 
this country, or the fire-fly of the West Indies, are 
naturally phosphorescent." 

Light and heat, then, we regard as the same th'ing. 
They coexist and are inseparable. All the percep- 
tible difference between them consists in volume or 
degree, and in volume or degree aloney and not in 
nature. Light exists either radiant or in a state of 
diffusion^ and, consequently, latent. It is radiant when 
coming from the sun to the earth, but the moment it 
strikes the earth it becomes latent, but it is still lights 
just as much, though not seen, as it was before, and, 
could it be condensed into the same compass, and 
under the same circumstances as before, it would 
become just as radiant as before. 

Heat is only light in a state of diffusion, as we be- 
fore remarked. This is proven by the fact that if you 
condense it sufficiently you make it light. Take a 
piece of iron, for instance, and heat it to a certain 
point, and it is still latent, or invisible ; but condense 
a trifle more heat upon the iron, and it begins to be 
light — condense more still and it grows lighter; and 
so continue and you make it glow, at length, with a 
radiance almost as intense as that of the sun at noon- 
day, but still it is only heat. Light, then, is only 
heat condejtsed, and the more it is condensed, the 
more intense is that radiance; and, on the other 
hand, heat when latent or invisible, is light in a 
state of diffusion. All the difference, then, between 
the two is in volume or degree, and in volume or 
degree alo?ie. 

The same remarks apply with equal force to elec- 



LIGHT AND HEAT. " 219 

tricity. When condensed in the electric spark, or in 
the galvanic current, or in the blazing thunderbolt, it 
is radiant electricity, but when not condensed, it is 
latent electricity, or electricity in a state of diffusion 
and invisibility. But, whether radiant or latent, it is 
the same thing precisely, only accumulated in different 
volumes. 

Some suppose that when the electric spark or the 
thunderbolt explodes, the electricity is destroyed. 
That, however, is an erroneous supposition, as can be 
proven by experiment. It only passes into a state of 
diffusion, and consequent invisibility, but is essentially 
the same thing as before, and, could it be collected 
again, would exhibit the same appearance as before, 
and explode in aflash equally intense. 

Mr. Cross, a literary gentleman of England, passed 
several conductors for some distance over the trees in 
his park, and connected them all with a single one, 
which passed down through his parlor. In this main 
conductor, which passed through his parlor, he had a 
joint so constructed that he could break the connec- 
tion, and leave a short interval between the two sec- 
tions. Whenever he made the separation, whether 
in fair weather or in foul, there was a constant suc- 
cession of brilliant electric sparks passing from one 
conductor to the other. Without this disconnection, 
the electricity would have passed over the conductor 
in just as great a volume, but would have been invisi- 
ble or latent, and, of consequence, boon the same 
precisely as if radiant. 

The fact that luminous and invisible electricity are 
the same, though condensed more in one instance 



220 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

than in the other, can be incontrovertibly proven by 
an experiment with what is called the spiral tube or 
diamond necklace. Over the glass, at very small 
intervals, are glued little pieces of tin-foil. There is 
probably a hundred of those pieces in a distance of 
two feet, and as many spaces between them. Now, 
communicate a spark of electricity, either from the 
electric machine or a charged Leyden jar, and in its 
passage through the tube it will become alternately 
luminous and latent one hundred times in the distance 
of two feet, which certainly would not be the case if 
electricity is destroyed or changed at all by explosion. 
It is latent when passing the tin-foil, and luminous 
when passing the intervals, simply because it is more 
diffused upon the tin-foil than in the spaces. Such an 
alternate arrangement of tin-foil and spaces might be 
extended until they should number many millions, 
and an electric spark would become alternately lumi- 
nous and latent as many millions of times, in its pass- 
age over them. All the difference, then, between 
radiant and invisible electricity is in volume or con- 
densation, and light and heat, as we have seen, exhibit 
precisely the sarrie analogies. 

We will here briefly enumerate a mass of additional 
facts which show the identity of caloric, light, and 
electricity. 

Good conductors of heat are also good conductors 
of electricity; and poor conductors of the one are 
poor conductors of the other. 

Heat affects bodies inversely according to the 
squares of the distance. This is the organic law of 
light, electricity, and magnetism. It speaks volumes 



LIGHT AND HEAT. 221 

in favor of the proposition that the sun is the fountain 
of all electricity, since the basis of this principle, which 
runs through all the imponderables, seems to be laid 
in the law of the divergence or radiation of light. 

Heat radiates in all directions like light, and its 
angle of incidence and of reflection are the same. 

Vessels containing a hot liquid will radiate heat 
much faster, if they have a rough surface, than those 
which have a smooth and polished one. The reason 
of this is because the rough surface has a great number 
of minute points^ from which the heat will escape, the 
same as electricity. The polished vessel has no points 
for radiation, and therefore retains the heat. 

In accordance with the same law precisely, a 
polished vessel containing cold water when placed 
before a fire will not be heated so quickly as one 
having a rough surface, because it presents no points 
to attract heat, but reflects it rather. 

A multitude of other facts could be collocated to 
prove conclusively that caloric and electricity are 
identical, but we must defer the remainder of our 
remarks to the next lecture, where we hope to demon- 
strate, among other things, that caloric is, in fact, the 
lightning of the clouds. 
19* 



LECTURE XII. 

HEAT — MAGNETIC ATTRACTION — THE 
AURORA. 

SO important is the demonstration of the proposi- 
tion that caloric is identical with the other im- 
ponderables, that we need offer no apology for its 
prolonged discussion. 

That was an important era in the history of science 
when the lightning of the clouds was identified with 
electricity. Quite as important will be that era when 
caloric and lightning shall be demonstrated to be 
one and the same thing. If that ever takes place, the 
propositions we have assumed will be proven to be 
correct, beyond the possibility of cavil or the shadow 
of a doubt. This subject, then, is richly worthy of a 
thorough investigation. What are the phenomena 
attendant upon a thunderstorm, and what are the 
causes which conspire to produce it? Storms, at- 
tended with thunder and lightning, seldom occur, 
except in very warm weather; and the warmer the 
weather the more frequent they are, and the more 
vivid, rapid, and intense are the lurid flashes of the 
red bolt of heaven. They prevail in the northern 
zones in the summer, in the southern in the winter, 
and in the torrid regions throughout the year. This 
is the modus operandi of their doings : 

222 



HEA T— MA GNE TIC A TTR ACTION, ETC. 223 

During the hot weather of the summer months, a 
vast amount of caloric is poured down from the sun, 
and diffuses itself throughout the waters of the foun- 
tains, rivers, lakes, and oceans of the globe, and 
produces evaporation ; for it is a fact which is gener- 
ally acknowledged, and which no one will dispute, 
that caloric is the vaporizing agent the world over. 
This vapor, when generated, rises, we know, and 
forms the clouds. The caloric or heat which originated 
it is absolutely required to keep it in a state of vapor; 
for the moment it is abstracted by any process or 
cause whatever, that moment vapor ceases to be 
vapor, and is condensed into water again. This is 
proved by the condensation of vapor or steam, in a 
low-pressure engine for instance, where, by the ab- 
straction of its caloric by cold, it returns to water. 

Now, what takes place during a thunderstorm, after 
a hot sultry day, in which vast quantities of vapor 
were generated, and with which vast quantities of 
caloric rose to keep it in a state of vapor — what 
takes place, we ask, during a thunderstorm at such a 
time? Why simply this: Clouds that are charged 
with caloric, some plus and others minus, or some 
positive and others negative, are drawn together by 
the strong attraction of opposite polarities, two clouds, 
having an affinity for each other, rush together — the 
caloric which kept the vapor in a state of vapor is thus 
given out from one to the other — explosion takes 
place — the cause which produced the vapor, and kept 
it so, having vanished, it is condensed, of course, into 
water, and being then heavier than the surrounding 
medium — heavier than the circumambient atmos- 



2 24 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

pliere, which before sustained it, it is immediately 
precipitated to the earth by gravitation in the form 
of showers. 

If a thunderstorm be watched, during the process 
of nimbification it will be seen that little dark clouds 
seem to congregate from every point of the compass, 
sometimes, and will conglomerate and thicken into 
deeper and deeper density and darkness — those 
which have the least caloric run the lowest, while 
those which have the greatest quantity run the highest ; 
as they come parallel to each other, the lower strata 
will lift, while the upper will settle down, being 
attracted by each other, until they come within 
striking distance, when the plus of the upper strata is 
given out to the minus of the lower, in the form of an 
explosion, and during this concussion a large share 
of the caloric which was treasured up in the vaporous 
vesicles of both clouds is abstracted in thunderbolts, 
and thus copious discharges of condensed vapor or 
water follow each flash. 

This accounts for the reason why the bolt most 
generally passes downward from the cloud to the 
earth. The upper strata being plus, gives out its 
caloric to the lower, which is always relatively minus, 
and therefore the scathing fires of heaven oftener leap 
downward than in any other direction. 

Lightning, then, or the electricity of the clouds, is 
nothing more nor less than caloric, abstracted from 
vapor by strong chemical affinities, and by explosion. 
It is radiant caloric, and caloric is electricity. We 
believe that no philosopher or chemist can account 
for all the phenomena of the thunderstorm and of 
the lightning in any other way. 



HE A T— MA GNE TIC A TTRA CTION, ETC. 225 

To show that we stand not alone in the advocacy 
of such sentiments, we will quote from that rare and 
excellent work by Dr. Metcalf, entitled A New Theory 
of Terrestrial Magnetism : 

" It was observed long ago by Dr. Franklin that 
masses of vapor in different states of electricity 
attracted each other far beyond what he called the 
striking distance. 

" It has probably been remarked by every person of 
observation, that light masses of vapor from the ocean, 
on approaching a mass of colder vapor from the 
northern points of the compass, approximate each 
other with accelerated velocity, when the colder 
current of vapor attracts caloric from the warmer, 
and it is condensed into a hazy mist or cloud. 

*'This is the rationale of aerial condensations. 
When a cloud is once formed, having parted with a 
portion of its caloric, it is niijuts in relation to all 
uncondensed or transparent vapor, which is plus, so 
that it becomes a centre of attraction, drawing to it 
successive masses of vapor, and abstracting their 
caloric, by which a perpetual condensation or nimbi- 
fication is kept up, until an equilibrium is restored. 

" It would seem obvious to the most superficial 
observer that caloric is the cause of evaporation, 
inasmuch as the greatest amount of evaporation takes 
place in regions which receive most of the sun's heat. 
We may form some idea of the vast amount of caloric 
contained in atmospheric vapor, when wc reflect that a 
pound of vapor will raise the temperature of a pound ^di 
water nearly looo degrees — that its bulk is increased 
about 1800 times in passing from a state of water to 

P 



226 A NEW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

that of vapor, and that all the rivers of the earth are 
supplied by its precipitation. 

" What then becomes of all the caloric which must 
be given out during the condensation of this vapor? 
We know that thunder and lightning are most abun- 
dant in tropical regions, and during hot, sultry weather 
in the middle latitudes. Hence we infer that the 
caloric of vapor, whejt greatly accumulated, is given 
out rapidly, in the form of electricity, on appj'oaching a 
colder mass of vapor, which is negatively charged with 
caloficy 

But it may, in this connection, be asked, what 
causes rain when lightning is not visible? The 
caloric is given out gradually and in such a volume 
that it is latent. This is either done by the vicinity 
of cold and warm masses of vapor, or the attraction 
of mountainous ridges, or of the minus earth. 

If this be true, we can see at once the reason why, 
upon the great desert of Sahara, where there are no 
mountains, and where the earth is almost always plus, 
it rarely, if ever, rains. The earth being plus, and 
imparting caloric to the masses of vapor as they float 
over it, rarefies them, and makes them float higher, 
rather than aid in their condensation. It would be 
utterly impossible, therefore, for it to rain oftener 
upon that desert. 

The same cause dissipates all appearances of rain 
in certain sections during the prevalence of a 
drought, so that showers will pass round, day after 
day, each side of them, and seem to shun them. The 
earth has in those sections become plus, and rarefies 
the clouds as they pass by, floats them higher, and 



HE A T— MA GNE TIC A TTRA CTION, ETC. 22/ 

prevents condensation. As a general occurrence, such 
spots are encroached upon gradually by showers, 
until they are at length made minus, and then they 
are visited by the refreshing rain. 

Could a large tower be erected, some one or two 
thousand feet high, in the very centre of the great 
desert of Sahara, and could its top be kept filled with 
ice, it would be the cause of the perpettml nimbification 
of clouds by its abstraction of their caloric. The 
consequence would be that it would be visited with 
frequent and vivifying showers. 

The sun is the great fountain of light. Were it, 
however, extinguished, as in Byron's poetic dream 
on darkness, there would be neither heat nor electric- 
ity ; and on the other hand, were there no heat nor 
electricity, there could be no light, for light is neces- 
sarily produced by the heat, which is indispensably 
requisite to render substances combustible, and without 
which they would not ignite, nor become combustible 
nor luminous at all. They are inseparable from each 
other and from electricity, and if you destroy the 
existence of the one, by the same process you destroy 
the existence of all. 

The fact is the sun, which sends forth its streams 
of light and heat, is the great fountain of electricity 
— the great galvanic battery of the solar system. 
Could it be stripped at once of these splendors, which 
sweep incessantly over the vast domain of its depend- 
ent worlds, and be left a dark, cold, opaque body, 
what think you would be the consequence ? \Vli\', 
in less than twenty-four hours, yea, in less than twelve 
hours, this globe would become a solid mass of ice 



228 A NEW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

from surface to centre, as well as every other body 
of the solar system. The very atmosphere would be 
congealed into an iceberg — the heart of nature 
would cease to beat — the pulse of nature would 
stand still — the powers of nature would all be palsied, 
chilled, and frozen to death. In such a supposed 
contingency, the orbs, if they moved at all, would 
wander — cheerless, black, and without order — through 
the vast expanse of desolation, dashing madly against 
each other in their blind and ungoverned career. 
Or else, as is most probable, in such a contingency, 
all motion would be stagnated, and every energy, 
every muscle, every nerve of the universe would be 
withered, stiffened, clothed with the rigidity of death. 
All sound would die away upon the palpable black- 
ness of chaos. No elastic medium would convey the 
tones of harmony by its vibrations. All nature would 
be dumb. 

While thinking upon this subject, I have permitted 
imagination, sometimes, to have unfettered sway, and 
to sketch the gloomy picture of the reality of such a 
supposition. In doing so, no description of the scene 
which I could paint seemed so graphic as the lan- 
guage of Byron's poetic dream on darkness, when 



-The world was void. 



The populous and powerful was a lump — 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless — 

A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and oceans all stood still, 

And nothing stirred within their silent depths. 

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal — 

As they dropped, they slept upon the abyss without a surge. 



HE A T— MA GNE TIC A TTRA CTION, E TC. 229 

The waves were dead — the tides were in their graves — 
The moon, their mistress, had expired before; 
The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 
And the clouds perished. Darkness had no need 
Of aid from them — she was the universe." 

This description, or a description like this, though 
almost horrid enough to make the blood run chill, 
would be no fiction. Should the light and caloric 
of the sun be abstracted from the universe, there 
would be no electricity. It would, with the rapidity 
of a flash, complete its circuit, and perish with its 
cause. It could be no longer excited by friction. 
No galvanic arrangement of metallic plates could 
produce it. And then motion would cease — all life 
would instantly become extinct, and darkness and 
death would reign triumphant and universal. 

In view of the facts and arguments which have 
already been submitted to the reader, we shall now 
consider it a conceded point that we \\dM^ proven the 
identity betiueen solar tig] it, caloric, and electricity. To 
test still farther the correctness of the principles ad- 
vocated, we will proceed to account, if possible, for 
certain mysterious and hitherto inscrutable phenom- 
ena, which can be satisfactorily accounted for if our 
positions be at all tenable. 

There have for ages been certain vague and indefi- 
nite ideas floating in the public mind respecting the 
cause of magnetic attraction. While some have 
thought that there was a certain incomprehensible 
control over the needle of the compass exerted by the 
North pole star, others have approached somewhat 
nearer to scientific accuracy, by ascribing this con- 
trolling influence to terrestrial magnetism. But Jiow 
20 



230 A iXE W PHIL SOPHY OF 3fA TTER. 

terrestrial magnetism is produced, and by what laws 
it is p;overned, the latter class have been about as 
much in the dark as the former. But if the positions 
we have assumed be true — if solar light and heat be 
electricity, and if the sun be its fountain — we have a 
key which will unlock all this mystery, which has 
hitherto been so inscrutable. To this important and 
useful purpose we will then apply it. 

How, upon the theory that the sun is the fountain 
of electric influences, is terrestrial magnetism accounted 
for? The sun being the great galvanic reservoir, 
pours its streams of light and heat vertically upon the 
space embracing 47 degrees of the earth's middle 
regions, or 23 ^^ degrees each side of the equator, 
constituting the torrid zone. Let the temperature of 
the other zones vary as it may, the heat of the torrid 
is always uniform, and always excessive compared 
with 'either the temperate or the frigid zones. Thus 
the torrid regions, by being more directly under the 
influence of the sun's rays, become more deeply elec- 
trified than either the temperate or the frigid. What 
is the consequence ? The equatorial regions are posi- 
tive or pliis^ while the polar regions are comparatively 
negative or inhiiis. There are two reasons for this. 
The 47 degrees, or the 3266^ statute miles of the 
earth's surface, embraced between 23^ degrees of 
north and 23^ degrees of south latitude, constitute 
the bulkiest part of the globe, and even if the remain- 
ing part, including the north and south temperate, 
and north and south frigid zones, were as directly 
exposed to the sun's rays as is the torrid, (which 
supposition is^ however, an impossibility,) the equator 



HE A T— MA GNE TIC A TTRA CTION, ETC. 2 3 1 

would in that case still be plus and the poles minus, 
because the torrid regions are the bulkiest, and receive, 
therefore, the greatest amount of the electric fluid. 

But the principle reason why the one is plus and 
the other minus is, because the one receives the rays 
of the sun more vertically than the other. Now for 
the application of an infallible rule. The equatorial 
regions being plus or positive, and the poles being 
minus or negative, there is a mutual attraction of the 
plus or superabundant fluid of the one and the minus 
of the other, upon that immutable and universal chem- 
ical principle that opposite polarities, or a positive 
and negative always attract, or that caloric always 
seeks to keep up an equilibrium, or to restore it when 
disturbed. 

Besides, from this immutable and universal law of 
caloric, to keep up or restore an equilibrium, its par- 
ticles, if they have opposite polarities, and if the plus 
end in radiations or emanations, always move first — 
must present, at the magnetic equator, their minus 
polarities to each other, and of course be continually 
repelled outward each way towards the poles. 

So, then, there arc actually two forces operating 
upon the superabundant electricity or caloric o{ the 
equator. And what is the consequence of the com- 
bined action of those two forces? Why, there will be 
two strong currents of electricity rushing continually, 
with lightning speed, from the equator each way, and 
these currents will, if this theor)- be true, ran towards 
the point of greatest cold, north and south, instead 
of the geographic pole. 

Some, perhaps, might contend tliat if the streams 



232 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER, 

of caloric constitute the directive power which is 
exerted by some agent over the needle of the compass, 
they must move spirally, in order to exert that influ- 
ence which is actually exerted. Such may confidently 
infer this from the fact that certain experiments have 
been made, which would seem to prove it. A sheet- 
iron globe has been constructed, and so wound 
spirally, from the north to the south pole, with insu- 
lated copper wire, that it would make the needle 
arrange itself north and south, whenever the galvanic 
current was sent through the wire from one pole to 
the other, by connecting the w4res at the two poles 
with the poles of the galvanic battery. 

But the inference, that such must be the spiral 
course of the electric current around the earth, by no 
means follows from this experiment ; for it must be 
recollected that there are two different currents, or 
two currents running in opposite directions from the 
equator to the poles, with their polarities arranged, 
of course, in opposite directions, the same precisely 
as if from the equator towards the poles of such a 
hollow sphere two currents should be sent in opposite 
directions from two galvanic batteries. By such an 
experiment, it could be demonstrated conclusively 
that the needle would arrange itself north and south, 
without having the galvanic fluid circulate around 
spirally. 

But it would not discredit the correctness of our 
theory at all, if it were necessary that there should be 
spiral currents, for there is doubtless a minor current, 
running spirally around the earth, from west to east, 
owing to the fact that, by the diurnal revolution, that 



HE A T— MA GNE TIC A TTRA CTION, ETC, 233 

side of the earth which is in darkness is relatively- 
minus, when compared with that part which is under 
the immediate influence of the sunlight. 

Now, then, for the explanation of magnetic attrac- 
tion. It has been ascertained by experiment that 
currents of electricity will influence the needle. The 
reason, then, why the north pole guides the needle 
when north of the equator, and the south pole when 
south of the equator, is perfectly obvious. These 
currents of electricity, rushing from the equator to 
the poles, constitute what is called terrestrial magnet- 
ism. They give direction to the needle of the compass. 
As the point of greatest cold varies, so they vary, and 
as they vary so the needle varies. 

Were the geographic pole of the earth the point of 
attraction, as has been supposed by some, the needle 
would ncvei'' vary at all^ but, as it is, it varies both 
diurnally and annually, because there are causes always 
operating at the North pole to change the point of 
greatest cold, particularly in the summer season, when 
the floating icebergs or ice islands of the Arctic are 
continually changing their position. 

There are other mysterious phenomena, which can 
be rationally and philosophically accounted for ojily 
upon the supposition that there are such currents of 
electricity as we have been describing. They arc the 
Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis, or the northern 
and southern lights, for there are southern lights as 
well as northern. If caloric be electricity, as we have 
supposed, and there arc currents passing from the 
torrid to the point of greatest cold in the frigid zone, 
the question arises, "what becomes o{ this electric 
20 "'^- 



234 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER, 

fluid when it arrives at that point of greatest cold ? " 
Why, it streams up into the rarer regions of the 
atmosphere, and in its return to the equator, it 
spreads out into the lambent, waving light exhibited 
by the aurora, the appearance being the same pre- 
cisely as electricity exhibits when passing through an 
exhausted tube, the same cause — the rarity of the 
atmosphere — operating in both cases to produce a 
luminous waving cloud, which proves that they must 
be identical. 

As we progress in the investigation of this subject, 
we find evidence accumulating upon evidence — all 
linked together, and all sustaining the truth of our 
main proposition. 

Captains Parry and Ross ascertained, in their ex- 
pedition to discover a north-west passage, that the 
focal point from which streams upward the Aurora 
Borealis was exactly the point of magnetic attraction, 
for, when sailing over that point, the dipping-needle 
stood exactly perpendicular, while the horizontal 
needle would not traverse at all, but would remain in 
any position in which it was placed. When west of 
that point their dipping-needle would incline to the 
east; when east of it, it would incline to the west. 
They occasionally found that the focal point, or the 
point from which the Aurora Borealis streams upward, 
was south of them, and in that case the north pole of 
the needle turned round and pointed southward, so 
that, let them move wherever they might, its guiding 
influence on the compass was still the same. 

They also ascertained another important fact — 
that this point of attraction was comparatively that 
of the greatest cold. 



HE A T— MA GNE TIC A TTRA CTION, ETC. 235 

All these facts combining their evidence, and sus- 
taining that of each other, can there be any rational 
doubt but that the caloric of the equator is electricity? 

See how admirably these facts are linked together, 
and how each sustains the ultimate conclusion. 
Caloric streams down from the sun — deeply electri- 
fies the equatorial regions — by a law of nature rushes 
towards the greatest cold of the poles — guides the 
needle invariably towards that greatest cold — streams 
upward, as it passes out from the magnetic pole — 
rises into the rarer or thinner regions of the atmos- 
phere, and, like electricity in its passage through an 
exhausted tube, spreads out into a luminous cloud, 
and forms the Aurora Borealis at the north, and the 
Aurora Australis at the south. Now, can there be 
any stronger proof, or any greater accumulation of 
proof, that caloric is in fact electricity, short of actual 
mathematical demonstration ? One who could not be 
convinced by such an array of facts, each supporting 
the other, could hardly be convinced, we should be 
inclined to suppose, by the evidence of his senses. 
He would be like that ancient sect of sceptical phi- 
losophers who doubted everything — even their own 
identity. 

In our next lecture, we shall connect together 
several other important links in our chain of testimony 
in favor of the identity of all the imponderables. 



LECTURE XIII. 

GRAVITATION — COHESION — MOTION OF 
PLANETS. 

IN continuation of our explanations of various 
mysterious phenomena of nature which have 
heretofore been left unexplained, or enveloped in a 
metaphysical fog, we would remark that there are yet 
other important and essential links in the chain of 
evidence, which we have been linking together, all 
of which will have a tendency to make the logical 
accuracy of our deductions more clear, and our con- 
clusions more and more undeniable and convincing. 

Gravitation, another imponderable principle of 
nature, is one of those links — a link too which, so 
far from diminishing or impairing in the shghtest 
degree the strength of the previous chain of deduc- 
tion, adds to it increasing power of tenacity, and 
resistance to efforts of prejudice or scepticism to break 
it — a link which is intimately connected, as we shall 
attempt to show, with the mysterious power of electro- 
magnetism. 

No topic, in the whole range of the sciences, has 
heretofore seemed to students more unaccountable — 
more involved in a dark and misty shroud of uncer- 
tainj:y, than gravitation. Upon what known philo- 
sophical, astronomical, or chemical law, bodies, within 

236 



GRAVITATION— COHESION, ETC. 23/ 

a certain distance, are attracted towards the earth, has 
for a long time been regarded by the learned and 
treated as an inexplicable enigma. 

It Is no solution of the riddle — no satisfactory 
explanation, to affirm that It Is attraction. If the 
attempt be made by any one so to define It, the ques- 
tion instantly suggests Itself to the unsatisfied mind 
of the diligent inquirer after scientific truth — what 
causes this attraction — why do all bodies, when un- 
supported in mid-air, fall to the earth, instead of flying 
off in a tangent — away from it, into space ? We 
answer, that there must be some definite reason exist- 
ing in the nature of things for this phenomenon. 
What, then, is that reason ? 

It will not avail anything, as we have seen, to say 
that It is attraction, or that It is the attraction of grav- 
itation. This method of solving the enigma would 
only be reasoning in a circle, as logicians would call 
it — would be only giving a simpleton's solution, by 
saying that a thing is so, because it is so. It conveys 
no definite idea to the mind — is referable to no gen- 
eral scientific law. So fir as purposes of lucid and 
perspicuous illustration are concerned, it might just 
as well be said that attraction of attraction causes that 
known disposition of bodies to seek the earth, as to 
be said that the attraction of gravitation causes it, for 
the words indicating or defining the cause are, in both 
cases, equally vague, having no definite idea attached 
to either of them. If we are told that all bodies of 
any bulk and density have an inherent tendency to 
approach other bodies of matter larger and heavier 
than themselves, upon the principle of attraction, and 



238 A A'EW PHIL SOPHY OF MA TTER. 

that this is the attraction of gravitation, is it any ex- 
planation at all ? Certainly not. " Instead of throwing 
any light upon the subject, it is only the substitution 
of one vague term for another term equally vague. 
The question still rushes upon the unsatisfied mind, 
with undiminished force — "What causes this gravita- 
ting tendency? Why do bodies tend downward 
towards the earth instead of upwards from it ? " 

Shall it be said that it is an insolvable mystery, 
which is beyond the ken of hurnan investigation, and 
so let it pass ? Will men permit themselves to be 
thus baffled in their researches into the nature and 
causes of things by difficulties which, perhaps, a stern 
and unbending perseverance might overcome ? This 
would be neither wise nor manly. There is not, we 
are persuaded, the cause of a single solitary effect of 
any kind in the universe, except the great uncreated 
Cause of all effects — or, in other words, a single 
secondary cause of any effect whatever, which may 
not, in time, by patient and persevering investigation, 
by comparing laws and agencies and influences, be 
satisfactorily ascertained. 

What, for instance, is a fundamental law of electrical 
attraction ? Why, an excited body attracts an unex- 
cited body that approaches it, in exact proportion to 
the squares of the distance. Iron, when temporarily 
magnetized by the galvanic or electric fluid, or steel, 
when permanently magneti'^ed, attracts contiguous 
metals precisely in the same proportions ; and although 
magnetism and electricity were once thought to have 
no sort of alliance with each other, yet they are now 
proven, beyond controversy, to be but one. And 



GRAVITATION— COHESION, ETC. 239 

what may we infer from this coincidence between the 
two, and the identity of their laws and agencies ? 
Why, that any other imponderable which shall ex- 
hibit the operation of the same governing laws, without 
a shade of difference, may also, yea, and will be found 
to be produced by the very same cause, upon the 
immutable principle of nature, that like causes produce 
like effects. 

Here then we have a key to unlock the mystery of 
gravitation — a rule to solve every enigma and every 
difficulty satisfactorily. The attraction which the 
earth exerts over loose bodies above its surface, is 
governed by the very same laws precisely as magnet- 
ism and electrical attraction — it draws them with a 
force which varies in inverse proportions according 
to the squares of the distance. 

Gravitation, then, is nothing more nor less than 
terrestrial magnetism, produced, as all magnetism is 
produced, by electricity, and that electricity streaming 
down from the source of all electricity, the sun. Be- 
fore this theory, every difficulty which surrounds the 
subject of gravitation vanishes at once. The phe- 
nomena of bodies gravitating towards the earth can 
be thus accounted for by the operation of known and 
acknowledged and tested scientific laws. The earth 
is, in fact, a magnet — exhibiting all the properties of 
a magnet — attracting the needle to the pole like a 
magnet — drawing bodies to itself with a force pre- 
cisely conformable to the attractive force or influence 
of a magnet — is made a magnet by electricity — and 
that electricity is the light and caloric that streams 
from the sun. The attraction of gravitation, then, is 
the attraction of terrestrial magnetism. 



240 A NE W PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

It has been the current opinion, among the mass of 
the community, and even among scholars, that every- 
thing is attracted towards the centre of the earth, as 
though that possessed some mysterious, unaccount- 
able power of attraction over substances, somewhat 
akin to the unphilosophical opinion, that the North 
pole star guides the needle of the compass, and that 
it increased all the way to that centre. But such is 
by no means the case. The attraction of gravitation, 
instead of being the greatest at the centre, is the 
greatest at the surface of the earth. 

Were it possible, for instance, to perforate through 
the earth, exactly at the magnetic centre instead of 
the geographic, a substance which might weigh hun- 
dreds of tons at the surface would weigh just nothing 
at all at that centre. It would be suspended there, 
were the space large enough, without any apparent 
support, like a light needle, when suspended within a 
helix, or coil of insulated copper wire, while passing 
a current of galvanism around it. And why would 
this be the case ? Because the electrical or magnetic 
attraction would be equal on all sides of the centre 
of the earth, and therefore a substance which would 
weigh several tons at the surface would there be per- 
fectly balanced, without support, and would, in that 
position, weigh just nothing at all, since 311 weight 
depends upon attraction, and that weight is exactly 
proportional to the attraction. As the power of the 
attraction is equal on all sides of the centre of the 
earth, and as attraction one way, without a correspond- 
ing attraction the other, causes all weight, therefore a 
substance at this centre must weigh nothing, because 



GRA VITA TION— COHESION, E TC. 2\ I 

the attraction being in all directions equal, must be 
neutralized. 

The attraction of gravitation, or, in other words, the 
attraction of terrestrial magnetism, which is the same 
thing precisely, is the greatest at the surface of the 
earth. It may be asked, then, — ** Why do all falling 
bodies fall toward the centre ? " Simply because the 
radiations of magnetism obey the same law precisely 
as the radiations of light. The lines of these radii, 
if continued on within the surface, or through the 
earth, from one side to the other, would intersect the 
centre, and the attractions of the surface are therefore 
directly toward the centre. 

From the fact that the radiations of magnetism obey 
the law of the radiations of solar light, and all other 
light, — that is, from the fact that the divergence of 
the radiations of magnetism is, in the exact propor- 
tion of the squares of the distance, the same as the 
divergence of light, gravitation, therefore, attracts all 
bodies around it in proportion to the squares of the 
distance of those bodies. So that the organic laws 
of magnetism, light, and gravitation are the same, and 
like laws produce like effects as well as like causes. 

Before dismissing the interesting subject of gravi- 
tation, we would express our belief that it is a propo- 
sition capable of demonstration that an increase of 
the material of the earth would increase its attraction, 
in precisely the ratio of the increase of the attraction 
of the magnet, by the increase of its material. Were 
the material of the earth doubled, for instance, its 
attraction would be quadrupled, precisely in accordance 
with the law of the divergence of light or the radi- 



242 A NE W PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

ations of electricity. Consequently the weight of all 
bodies upon its surface, of the same bulk and density, 
would, in such a supposed contingency, be quadrupled 
in accordance with an immutable law. 

Now, from all that has been said, does it not appear 
perfectly evident that gravitation has a cause, as defi- 
nite and as easily explained as magnetism, which 
cause is precisely the same. The great magnet of 
Professor Henry, for instance, to which we have 
already alluded, would, when fully charged with the 
galvanic current, neutralize all the power of the earth's 
gravitation, and make a body gravitate upwards from 
the earth with a power equal to tzvo or three to7ts. 
And why ? Simply because a vast volume of elec- 
tricity was accumulated there in a small compass, by 
means of the insulated copper wires, around which 
the galvanic fluid circulated. Electricity or light, 
then, we can legitimately conclude, is the cause of 
gravitation. 

The attraction of cohesion has the same cause as 
the attraction of gravitation. They are both, doubt- 
less, produced by that electric cause, the light and 
caloric of the sun. The one is the attraction between 
large masses, and the other between the component 
particles of those masses ; the one attracts at great 
distances, and the other at insensible distances — their 
attractions are, therefore, the same in essence, though 
not in volume or degree. What holds the armature 
of Henry's large magnet, when charged, but the sim- 
ple power of cohesive attraction betv/een the particles 
of the iron, which composes the material- of the mag- 
net and armature, which cohesive power is caused by 



GRAVITATION— COHESION, ETC. 243 

electricity? We believe it is nothing else. The 
same power, precisely, holds the particles of all 
bodies together, and that power of cohesive attraction 
varies often as the amount of latent caloric varies. 
Abstract the latent caloric of iron, for instance, by 
intense cold, or by any other cause, and you, in a 
proportionable degree, destroy its cohesive attraction, 
and make it brittle. This is proven by the ease with 
which iron is fractured in the intense cold of the 
winter. 

By hammering iron when cold, or by rolling it in 
a rolling mill, it will also become brittle. And why ? 
Because the caloric, which constitutes cohesive attrac- 
tion, is pressed out upon the surface by closing the 
pores. This is proven by the fact that caloric accu- 
mulates upon the surface in proportion as the pores 
of the iron are contracted by the rolling-mill or the 
hammer, which drive out the latent caloric. 

The various phenomena of capillary attraction can 
be referred to the same cause as cohesion — to the 
caloric, that electrifies all substances under its influ- 
ence. The tallow that composes the candle, for in- 
stance, is drawn up into the wick during combustion 
by capillary attraction, and that attraction is caused 
by the caloric set free during ignition. 

We are well aware that many objections to the 
validity of our positions can be started by fruitful im- 
aginations, which may appear plausible and seem to 
conflict with the conclusions which we have drawn, 
but which must be deceptive, since the laws of nature 
do not clash, and, if some of the reasons and the 
modes of her operations arc beyond the ken of the 



244 A NE W PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

acutest and most penetrating scrutiny, it amounts to 
no conclusive proof that we are incorrect. The ques- 
tion is simply this — have our deductions appeared 
rational, and in accordance with known and tested 
laws, and have they been amply sustained by an 
accumulation of appropriate facts? If so, we are 
under no obligation to explain mysteries in the essen- 
tial attributes of an agent, while we are attempting to 
trace merely the effects of that agent, for most of those 
objections which are or may be started will be found, 
upon close scrutiny, to relate to essence^ rather than 
to the modus operandi of that essence. 

Such questions as these, for instance, may be asked 
by the cavilling objector. If caloric be the cause of 
cohesive attraction, why will its accumulation entirely 
destroy cohesive attraction, as in the instance of all 
melted metals ? Or, if caloric be electricity, and, if 
electricity be magnetism, why does not its accumula- 
tion around the large galvanic magnet make that large 
magnet hot ? Or, why will this agent under one set 
of circumstances produce an effect, and under another 
destroy that same effect it produces, if " like causes 
produce like effects ? " These, and a thousand other 
questions, might be proposed by the objector, which 
are more easily asked than answered. 

But, to show that they relate to essence, we will 
ask some questions equally puzzling about electricity, 
where there can be no mistake about the identity of 
the agent. Why will the very same current of gal- 
vanism produce both an acid and an alkaline taste ? 
Why will electricity, under one set of circumstances, 
make a magnet, and why, under other circumstances. 



GRAVITATION— COHESION, ETC, 245 

will it destroy that same magnet ? It will be readily 
perceived that it is much easier to " ask questions than 
to answer them," and that such questions refer rather 
to an explanation of essence than of effect. That 
essence of electricity we never attempted, nor have we 
ever proposed, to explain. It is a wonderful agent, 
and as mysterious as it is wonderful. Its effects are 
varied by countless myriads of modifications, and 
these effects we investigate, rather than the inscrutable 
reasons why those modifications should be so multi- 
tudinous, and why they should, in some cases appear 
to clash. 

To show that we stand not alone in the advocacy 
of the opinion that cohesive and capillary attraction 
are produced by caloric or electricity, we will quote 
from Metcalf 's '* New Theory of Terrestrial Magnet- 
ism." Speaking of caloric, he says : — "It seems to 
be a general law of this subtle element, that it repels 
its own particles, and is attracted, though unequally, 
by all other matter, with an increased ratio, as the 
squares of the distance diminish.* 

" From which it follows, that when caloric is with- 
drawn from a body, that body has a stronger affinity 
for caloric than one which is filled with it ; and two 
bodies charged with caloric, one plus and the other 
minus, will attract each other with a force propor- 
tioned to the different quantities of caloric which they 
contain, and to the rapidity of its conduction from 
one to the other. 

* We do not believe in the above proposition, so far as reciprocal 
attraction is concerned. This would, as we have elsewhere shown, 
destroy the vis inertiis of ponderable matter. 
21 * 



246 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

" An experiment, which I inadvertently made when 
a child, strikingly illustrates this principle. On the 
morning of 'cold Friday,' as it was called through 
the Western country, I applied my tongue to a plate 
of cold iron, while the mercury was about fifteen 
degrees below zero, when it adhered with such force 
that the skin was removed on separating it. Captain 
Scoresby relates, that frequently such was the inten- 
sity of cold in the Arctic seas, that the hands of the 
sailors adhered fast to whatever metals they touched. 

" In all such cases the temperature of the living 
body is from 115 to 140 degrees higher than that of 
the metals — in other words, the living body is 
charged plus, while they are minus ; and the attraction 
continues until the equilibrium is restored, when it 
ceases. 

" The same attraction takes place when the hand 
is applied to metals heated greatly above the tempera- 
ture of the living body ; and for the same reason, one 
of the two bodies being charged plus and the other 
minus. 

" When the temperature of metals is greatly re- 
duced, they become brittle, so that a slight blow will 
fracture them ; the same effect is produced on iron by 
hammering, which presses out and expels from it that 
portion of caloric which is necessary to its cohesion 
and malleability. Hence it follows that a certain 
amount of caloric between the particles of matter is 
requisite to mantain their cohesion; but when the 
amount of caloric is increased beyond a certain extent, 
it separates the particles, and thus diminishes, or 
overcomes, the power of cohesion. 



GRA VITA TION— COHESION, E TC. 247 

" A great variety of facts may be adduced to show 
that capillary attraction is owing to the operation of 
the same law. For example, if a piece of sugar be put 
into a glass of water, a portion of the caloric of fluidity 
leaves the water, enters among the particles of sugar, 
and diffuses itself equally throughout the whole. 
During this absorption of caloric by the sugar, the 
temperature of the resulting mixture is somewhat 
reduced, proving that, in relation to the water, the 
sugar is minus or negative, and the water is plus or 
positive. 

" If the piece of sugar be cut into a cylindrical 
form, of one or two inches in diameter and five or six 
inches long, and one end of it only be inserted into 
a glass of water, the caloric of the positive fluid, being 
strongly attracted by the negative sugar, pervades it 
rapidly throughout, until the equilibrium is restored, 
when the entire mass is dissolved. 

" M. Lehot found by experiment that under the 
same pressure, water rises higher in vertical capillary 
tubes as its temperature is elevated. (Bibl. Univers. 
Mars. 1820, p. 225.) 

" The phenomena of a burning candle illustrates the 
agency of caloric in producing capillary attraction in 
a very striking manner. The wick is ignited, the 
tallow rendered fluid, and attracted by caloric so as 
to furnish a continual supply of combustible matter 
to the wick, which is decomposed and expanded into 
flame or light. The force and rapidity of capiHary 
attraction, all other things being equal, arc in pro- 
portion to the amount of heat given out in the wick. 

"Capillary and cohesive attractions arc only modi- 



248 A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

fied effects of the same cause. It is the attraction of 
caloric for the particles of water that holds them 
together — that gives its drops their globular form ; 
as it is the attraction of caloric for porous solids and 
capillary tubes that raises the water above its ordinary 
level." 

If light and caloric be electricity, and the sun be 
the sole fountain from which it issues, as we have 
attempted in previous lectures to demonstrate, then 
its influence over the planets that revolve around it 
must also be an electric influence. If their motions 
are produced by the influence of the sun, then those 
motions must be governed by the laws which govern 
the electric agent. 

We approach the discussion of this subject with 
the feeling that it is the most important, as well as 
the most interesting, of any contained in the whole 
series of lectures. If we shall demonstrate that the 
revolutions of all the planets, both diurnal and annual, 
can be philosophically accounted for, in accordance 
with those organic laws of electricity which have 
been, and may be ascertained definitely in the labora- 
tory, in their action upon pith-balls or electrometers, 
then will our opinions upon this subject be trium- 
phantly sustained beyond the influence of cavil, and 
their correctness incontrovertibly proven. But, if we 
shall not be able to demonstrate such an identity, 
then will it appear conclusive that we have been 
indulging in philosophical dreams or baseless chimeras 
of the brain. 

What, then, are the forces which electricity exerts 
over pith-balls ? They are two, which, as we have 



GRA VITA TION— COHESION, E TC. 249 

heretofore abundantly shown, have their basis in the 
inherent organic laws of this agent, and depend always 
for their development upon a plus and minus. 

And what are the two forces which have ever been 
supposed to govern the motions of the planets ? Why 
they are what philosophers have denominated centrif- 
ugal and centripetal forces. The meaning of the one 
is, a tendency to fly from a centre ; and that of the 
other, a disposition to seek the centre. Now these 
terms are, as any one must see, exactly equivalent to 
attraction and repulsion. Centrifugal is repulsion, and 
centripetal is attraction. So, then, we find that we 
have to bring to our aid no new forces, if we adopt 
the hypothesis that the influence of the sunlight upon 
the solar system is electric, since its two organic 
forces correspond exactly to the centrifugal and 
centripetal of all standard works. 

How, then, is the diurnal motion of the earth, for 
instance, produced upon this hypothesis, taking the 
movements of this globe for example, since they are 
more familiar than those of any other planet ? Why, 
simply in this manner. The sun illuminates one half 
of the surface of the globe, while the other half is 
in darkness. That hemisphere which is in darkness 
is relatively minus, when compared with that which 
is illuminated, and so, vice versa, that hemisphere 
which is under the direct influence of the radiance of 
the sun is relatively plus, while the other is minus. 
The plus of the one side will increase from morning 
until sundown, and the minus of the other from sun- 
down until morning. This is in accordance with that 
tested fact that, if any substance be exposed to an 



250 A A^EW PHIL OSOPHY OF MA TTER. 

electrifying cause, it becomes plus, and the longer it 
is exposed to that cause, the more highly plus it 
becomes, and so, on the contrary, if any substance be 
removed from the electrifying influence, it becomes 
minus, and the longer it is removed, the more deeply 
minus it becomes. Now, what is the legitimate result 
of such a condition of the earth ? That part of the 
earth which has been longest in the sun's rays has 
come, as we have said, to a highly plus or positive 
state — that is, it has come to that state in which, 
throughout the torrid regions and part of the tem- 
perate, there must be an outward emanation, which 
constitutes a plus or positive, since any substance 
exposed for any length of time to the electrifying 
cause must become positive. 

By an immutable law of electricity, two positives 
repel. Therefore, that part of the earth which has 
been longest in the sun's rays having come to a posi- 
tive condition, is repelled by the positive sun. But 
that part which has been the longest removed from 
the direct influence of the electrifying cause, and has, 
therefore, come to a deeply negative condition, would, 
of course, be attracted by the positive sun, since a 
positive and negative always attract. If this were the 
true principle of revolution of the earth upon its axis, 
the plus part of the earth must be always rolling 
away from the sun, while the minus part must be 
always moving towards it, from the fact that two posi- 
tives always repel, and a positive and a negative 
always attract. And this is the case, not with the 
earth only, but with all the planets which compose the 
solar system. That part of all of them which has 



GRAVITATION— COHESION, ETC. 2$! 

been longest m the sun's rays, is always rolling away 
from him, while that part which has been the longest 
out of his rays, is always rolling towards him. In 
producing the rotary motion of the earth, then, upon 
its axis, it is evident that the sun exerts two forces 
upon it — the one of attraction and the other of repul- 
sion — which would cause its diurnal revolution, since, 
if you strike a ball on each side with equal force, and 
in opposite directions, you give it the rolling motion. 

The earth, then, revolves on its axis daily, by the 
influence of the two forces of attraction and repulsion 
exerted over it by the sun, and those are precisely 
analogous in every respect to those of electricity. 

If this be not the precise influence which the sun 
exerts over the earth in the production of its diurnal 
motion, what is that influence ? It is universally ac- 
knowledged that the sun governs all the motions of 
the earth. But, while such an acknowledgment has 
been made, there seems to have been no clear or well- 
defined idea in the minds of those who have made 
such an acknowledgment, as to what constitutes that 
ruling power. They have almost universally taken it 
for a conceded proposition, that such a ruling power 
of nature controls the movements of this globe of ours ; 
but how it exerts such a control, they seem scarcely 
to have taken the trouble to inquire. 

But if the sun governs the motions of the earth, it 
governs those motions in accordance with uniform, 
well-defined, and immutable laws. Now, if an)- one 
affirm that the sun controls the movements o{ the 
earth, he is bound to explain the principles o{ that 
If he cannot, how does he know that 



252 A NEW PHIL SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

there is any such government at all. He has no right 
to assert that one thing is governed by another with- 
out he can give some definite reason, or reasons, why 
he draws such a conclusion. Nor has he any right to 
object to conclusions which others have drawn from 
well-defined premises, and deductions founded in 
reason and sustained by well-attested facts. 

We, for instance, have assumed the proposition to 
be true, and have endeavored to prove it, that elec- 
tricity is the cause of all attraction and repulsion, upon 
both a large and small scale, and, consequently, of all 
motion among spheres as well as atoms, and that the 
sun is the fountain whence it originates. As part of 
a connected chain of antecedents and consequents, or 
of causes and effects, we have drawn the legitimate 
conclusion, from the practical results of this theory, 
that the sun governs the earth and the other planets 
of the solar system by an electric influence. That 
influence has been tested in the laboratory upon pith- 
balls, and is, therefore, acknowledged by all who pre- 
tend to any very extensive attainments in science. 

Now we have shown that the diurnal motion of the 
earth can be produced by the streams of electrifying 
sun-light, precisely in accordance with those known 
and tested and universally acknowledged electric in- 
fluences which are of every day occurrence, and are 
familiar to every schoolboy. And if objections be 
urged against such conclusions, those who urge them 
ought certainly to be prepared to explain the laws by 
which the sun governs the earth, more satisfactorily 
and plausibly, or else forever hold their peace, and 
acknowledge their incompetency to do it ; for the old 



GRAVITATION— COHESION, ETC, 253 

Stereotyped method of explanation, by referring the 
whole to the influence of the centrifugal and centripetal 
forces, without explaining how those two forces are 
produced, will not answer — will satisfy no inquiring 
mind. 

Feeling the force of the deductions which we have 
drawn, and seeing the impossibility of denying our 
conclusions, if our premises be correct, some may be 
roused by the impulse of their alarmed prepossessions 
to attack some of those premises. They may deny 
that the earth becomes minus during the night, and 
therefore infer that there are no two forces of the kind 
we have mentioned. But such cannot have investigated 
the subject at all. The earth is a rapid radiator of 
caloric, and, therefore, when the cause of it is removed, 
it rapidly dissipates. The consequence is, that although 
the emanations of caloric are outward from the earth 
during the day, especially in the Torrid zone, they are 
inward from the atmosphere to the earth at night, as 
is proven by the deposits of dew, for these deposits 
result from the abstractions, by the minus earth, of 
the caloric of the vapor, which was generated in the 
day time, and rose from the earth by the force of 
emanating or plus caloric. The passage of caloric is, 
therefore, into the earth at night, from the surrounding 
atmosphere, and of course presents its minus polarities, 
as all inward currents do. This objection falls, there- 
fore, to the ground for the want of the shadow of a 
support, and so would every other objection, we be- 
lieve, because our explanation of the phenomena of 
the revolution of the earth is in accordance with the 
immutable laws of nature. 



254 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

As we have already remarked, all the other primary 
planets obey the same laws precisely, or are governed 
by the same influences, in their rotary motions upon 
their axis, as the earth. 

An objection may, however, be urged against this 
conclusion, from the fact that there is no uniformity 
in the diurnal revolution of those whose motions have 
been ascertained with certainty, since Venus turns on 
her axis in twenty-three hours and twenty minutes, 
the Earth in twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes, 
Mars in twenty-four hours and thirty-nine minutes, 
Jupiter in nine hours and fifty-five minutes, and Saturn 
in ten hours and sixteen minutes. 

Now, why is there so much dissimilarity in the 
revolution of these planets, if there be a common 
cause for it, and if the laws which govern that common 
cause are invariable ? It must be owing to the different 
materials which compose them, to their different powers 
of radiating caloric, to their different distances from 
the sun, and also, doubtless, to their bulk. Venus is 
some twenty-eight millions of miles nearer to the sun 
than this earth, and its day is thirty-six minutes shorter 
than ours. Upon the supposition that the power or 
capability of each planet to radiate caloric decreases 
in exact proportion as the squares of the distance from 
the sun increase, about which we shall soon remark 
more at large, then the revolutions of each primary 
planet would be regulated in exact proportion to bulk 
and distance. 

The difference between the relative distances from 
the sun of the Earth and Mars is forty-eight millions 
of miles, and the difference between the time of their 



GRA VITA TION— COHESION, ETC. 2$^ 

revolutions is forty-three minutes. Now, if we take 
those three planets — Venus, the Earth, and Mars — 
for data whereupon to make our calculations, we can 
determine with mathematical certainty whether any 
other causes than mere bulk and distance influence 
the rapidity of their revolutions. 

The difference between the bulk of Venus and the 
Earth, in diameter, is two hundred and forty miles, 
between their distances from the sun is twenty-eight 
millions of miles, and between the time'of their revo- 
lution, or the length of their day, is thirty-six minutes, 
while the difference between the bulk of the Earth and 
Mars, the next planet, is three thousand seven hundred 
and thirty-nine miles, between their distances is forty- 
eight millions of miles, and their time forty-three 
minutes. Into this account is to be taken the bulk 
and influences of the Moon, which the Earth carries 
along with it. 

Without having space to enter into all the minutiae 
of a mathematical calculation in the present connec- 
tion, it is our impression that, with these data before 
us, it can be perfe(!tly demonstrated that the rapidity 
of diurnal revolution depends alone upon bulk and 
distance from the sun combined. 

This accounts satisfactorily for the reason why 
Jupiter and Saturn revolve upon their axis in less 
than half the time of the revolution of our earth, 
although the one be three hundred and ninety-five 
millions of miles farther from the sun than the earth, 
and the other eight hundred and five milHons farther; 
for Jupiter has a diameter about twelve times as great 
as our earth, making its bulk more than a thousand 



256 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

times greater than this planet, besides carrying with 
it four large moons ; and Saturn, exclusive of the 
weight of his enormous rings and seve7i moons, is 
nearly six hundred times larger than the earth. They 
may, therefore, in exact accordance with our data, 
both perform their diurnal revolutions in less than 
half the time of our earth. 

Having come, by our deductions, to the conclusion 
that the rapidity of revolution depends upon the 
bulk of the planets, and their relative distances from 
the sun, we would here remark that, if the power or 
capability of the planets to radiate caloric decreases 
according to the squares of their distance from the 
great centre of the system, then there is a definite 
cause why they all occupy just the position they do. 
Were this the case, they could come no nearer to the 
sun than they now do, nor could they remove farther 
away from it, but must remain just in the position 
they do at present, and have done since creation, so 
long as their material remains the same, or they have 
the same power of retaining or radiating caloric. 

For if they should come any nearer, it is evident 
that they must become plus, and so be driven back 
by the repulsion of two positives. And if they should 
recede farther from the centre, they would become 
minus, and so be drawn to the position whence they 
started by the attraction of a positive and negative. 
It is perfectly evident, then, that the planets are com- 
pletely balanced in their orbits. They can neither'fly 
away from them nor can they be drawn into the sun, 
for the agent that rules them, and governs all their 
motions, holds them just where they are with bonds 



GRA VITA TION— COHESION, ETC. 25/ 

which cannot be broken, until the. final "wreck of 
matter and the crash of worlds." Owing to this cause 
alone, the earth approaches the sun in one part of its 
orbit and is driven back in the other, the two forces 
keeping it balanced exactly in strict accordance with 
that law of caloric which has a tendency to keep up 
an equilibrium throughout nature. 

Having accounted, rationally, for the revolutions of 
the planets upon their axes, upon the principles of 
electrical attraction and repulsion, how shall we ac- 
count now for their annual revolutions around the 
sun? This, we confess, is a subject much more ab- 
struse, and the problem is much more difficult to solve. 
But yet we believe that it is capable of being satisfac- 
torily solved, in accordance with the very same elec- 
trical principles which we have already fully explained 
and tested. 

But before we proceed to do this, it is necessary 
for us to state a few facts which will aid materially in 
the solution of this problem. 

Not only do all the planets revolve one way upon 
their axis, but they all move in one direction around 
the sun. Their motions, also, decrease in regular 
proportions and gradations as they recede from the 
sun. Mercury, for instance, moves in her orbit one 
hundred and eleven thousand and ninety miles per 
hour ; Venus eighty-one thousand ; the Earth sixty- 
eight thousand ; Mars fifty-six thousand ; Jupiter 
twenty thousand ; Saturn, according to Ferguson, 
eighteen thousand, and Herschcl fifteen thousand. 

It will be seen that their movements arc regulated 
by distance from the sun, combined with bulk, and 

22* R 



258 A NEW PHIL O SO PHY OF MA TTER. 

we believe it to be a proposition capable of absolute 
demonstration that the decrease of the motion of all 
the planets in their several orbits would be in exact 
proportion to the squares of their distances from the 
sun, if they were all of the same bulk and density 
exactly, taking the present ratio of their movements 
as correct data from which to draw conclusions. 

Now, then, for the explanation of the annual revo- 
lutions of the planets. The sun seems to turn on his 
axis once in twenty-five days. That may be nothing 
but a seeming revolution, owing to the movement 
of its emanations in vast orbits, as we have before 
remarked, and which would convey that impression 
to an observer upon this globe ; but it may be real. 
Be that as it may, all the planets move the same way 
that the sun seems to revolve, and therefore the same 
way that its emanations move in their orbits. 

Now by the influence of the rays of the sun, moving 
with lightning speed in their orbital course, must the 
planets be all moved in one direction, since all their 
movements, both diurnal and annual, are governed 
entirely by the emanations of the sun, as we have 
seen. This is, doubtless, effected by the amazing 
influence which, as we have upon a small scale 
demonstrated, opposite polarities have upon each 
other, in inducing the particles of the electric stream 
to follow each other, and to move with them either 
atoms or masses of ponderable matter. 

" But why," it may be asked, " does not this ten- 
dency of electricity to control both atoms and masses 
of ponderable matter drag them outward, exactly in 
the line of the course of its orbital movements ? " 



GRA VITA TION— COHESION, ETC. 259 

Because, as we have seen, if they were moved outward 
from their present position, they must become imme- 
diately minus, and be drawn back by the positive sun. 
Besides, were not this the case, the inward passage 
of the electric rays, in their return, as we have before 
explained, to their source, the sun, being with a 
lightning speed, as rapid as their outward emanation, 
may have a tendency somehow to neutralize the tan- 
gential force, and at the same time aid in the propul- 
sion of the planets in their orbits, as the propelling 
force, if they have any, would be in the right direction. 

The eccentric movements of the comets are pro- 
duced by the operation of the same laws as the move- 
ments of the planets. In the most distant part of 
their orbit, — a thousand millions of miles, perhaps, 
from the sun, or even more, — these wandering stars 
move very slow, and in the arc of a circle almost 
immeasurable, having lost their charge of caloric, and 
become minus. The sun, being positive, and they 
deeply negative, it begins to exert an attracting influ- 
ence over them. As that attraction increases con- 
tinually in proportion as the squares of the distance 
decrease, they move swifter and swifter, until, as they 
approach the sun, they sometimes fly more than eight 
hundred thousand miles in an hour. At their peri- 
helion they are very near the sun, and become highly 
positive, as they revolve half round in its intense 
blaze, and are propelled back again into the fields of 
space with the same lightning speed that they wore 
attracted towards the great fount of all motion. 

In view of what has been said in the preceding 
series of lectures, how wonderful is the subject of 



26o A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF MATTER. 

electricity — how various and how magical are its 
agencies ! It streams down in the vivifying rays of 
the sun — quickens and invigorates the sluggish pul- 
sations of nature — preserves the warmth of vitality 

— works all the countless myriads of chemical 
changes — clothes the cheek with the blush of health 

— spreads a rich carpet of green over the landscape 

— dresses the forest in its foliage, and has, no doubt, 
a direct agency in the production and continuance of 
all the forms of both animal and vegetable life. 

But there is a reverse to this picture. Not always 
does it, in the exhibition of its wondrous phenomena, 
put on an aspect of such blandness and genial benev- 
olence, wreathing itself in sunny smiles. No ! Its 
countenance sometimes gathers either mysterious 
grandeur or terrific fearfulness ; sometimes it streams 
upward from the poles in splendid corruscations, and 
weaves a bright coronal of lambent light at the zenith ; 
sometimes it exhibits itself in the effulgence and 
evanescence of the meteor's flash and the meteoric 
shower ; sometimes it leaps out from the dark foldings 
of the storm-cloud, darts downward through the 
gleaming tempest, and, with a fearful energy, which 
none else but God can wield, blasts everything it 
touches ; sometimes it flames athwart the heavens, in 
the trail of the comet, as it speeds its erratic and 
lightning course, and makes the nations pale with 
forebodings; sometimes it assumes the port and 
majesty and terror of the burning whirlwind — rushes 
forth upon the red wing of the Syroc, and sweeps 
with desolation the hot plains of Sahara ; sometimes 
it musters its almost omnipotent force in the deep 



GRAVITATION— COHESION, ETC. 26 1 

caverns of the earth's centre, and makes the globe 
tremble and reel beneath the tramp of the earthquake, 
and melts rocks, and pours rivers of lava from the 
crater's mouth, and hurls enormous masses of blazing 
matter above the clouds, and upheaves mountains 
from the depths of the ocean and piles them in the 
sky. Such are some of the wonderful agencies of 
electricity. 



PART 11. 

ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THE first part of this volume, by Professor 
Brewster, with only a few exceptions or alter- 
ations, embracing the great and important subject of 
Electricity as a science, and a wonderful as well as 
powerful principle in nature, brings to our notice 
many new and interesting truths hitherto undeveloped 
and almost unknown — -speaking of electricity only 
as a science or a power for man to use in the acquire- 
ment of wealth. 

But the direct and more important principle of my 
discoveries and investigations are found in the use 
of these very electrical currents to heal the maladies 
of the mind and body of my fellow-beings, and that, 
too, in many instances when all other remedies have 
proved unavailing or ineffectual. This first principle, 
electricity as a science, is truly interesting and impor- 
tant; but the latter much more so, inasmuch as the 
life and health are valued beyond dollars and cents. 

For several years I have been urged to publish my 
careful investigations and experience in the treatment 
of disease by electricity, together with my new system 
of diagnosis, embracing new views of the philosophy of 

J 03 



264 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

disease — a new power by which the blood is cleansed 
and circulated in such a simple and concise form that 
the common people (as well as the educated), with a 
proper knowledge of a well-regulated machine, might 
be able to treat themselves and families for all plain 
or common diseases successfully. There are a few 
small guides (blind, however) on the subject of treat- 
ing disease by electricity put out by those who have 
invented machines for the purpose of assisting them 
in selling their inventions, but who have no correct 
idea of the human structure; or if they have, the proper 
manner of applying electricity as a cure of disease 
has crept into their brain wrong-end foremost, judg- 
ing, as I do, from what they have written as contrasted 
with my many years of careful experience. 

Many either use the currents wrongfully, or too 
much inductive electricity, or both. I have been 
told by several under my treatment, that they 
had been treated elsewhere where it was used so 
strong as to produce a shaking of the entire muscular 
system, amounting almost to convulsions, and that 
too for an hour or two hours at a sitting. Such 
practitioners, it seems to me, must have but very 
little knowledge of the fineness of the human struc- 
ture, and the tremendous potency of the electric 
agent to produce injury. To correct these many 
evils, and to enlighten all the ignorant and learned 
who will take the trouble to read this work, and, 
above all, for the special benefit of common humanity, 
I submit the following to a careful and candid perusal. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

COMMON ELECTRICITY. 

THE onward cry in the march of improvement in 
every branch of science is resounding over the 
land. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, over the broad 
ocean and across the continent, even back again to our 
own shores, it is not in the least diminished. 

We need only to catch a glimpse of the newly- 
printed page of the morning or evening paper, or the 
bound volume, and we are ready and eager to inquire, 
as the Athenians in their ancient glory did, after some 
new thing. 

One strange, remarkable fact, however, we have 
long noticed with a sincere regret, that while me- 
chanics, artizans, philosophers, astronomers, and phy- 
sicians too, have thus pressed onward in certain 
directions to extremes, even to the injury of their 
mental faculties, to discover some new thing, or a 
very valuable improvement in the old, one subject or 
science more valuable to the world than any other, or 
even all others combined, perhaps, has been alniost 
entirely overlooked, viz., coiiiniou. electricity. It has 
been thus treated ever since its first discovery by 
Thales, the Grecian philosopher, who flourished some 
six hundred years before the Christian era, as hereto- 
fore mentioned in this work by Professor Brewster. 
23 ^ 265 



266 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT, 

He made some interesting discoveries, performed 
some experiments in mechanics, and cured many dis- 
eases that caused the more superstitious and ignorant 
of his day almost to revere him as a god come down 
among them. Then, for a period of nearly three hun- 
dred years, no advance whatever was made. After 
him Theophrastus, a student and disciple of Aristotle, 
made some few but rather unimportant additions. 
Then we have no knowledge of any particular ad- 
vances for a much longer period. About two thousand 
years elapsed, when Drs. Gilbert, Digby, Boyle^ Sir 
Otto Guerresk, Hawkesby, Grey, and a few others 
added a few things of importance to the science. 
Some tim.e after them, the never-to-be-forgotten New- 
ton and Franklin added more to the list of interesting 
facts by their discoveries and experiments than all 
others before them seemingly had done. Again, for 
quite a period, nothing special was accomplished until 
Professor Morse, with untiring zeal, brought out the 
principle of the telegraph, and, finally, harnessed 
electricity for his use, to the surprise and even perfect 
astonishment of many in sending their thoughts, and 
words too, upon the electric wire. He was strongly 
opposed, as is always the case in all new and important 
measures ; but his strongest opponents were finally 
obliged to yield. And now we wonder how we lived 
so long without the telegraph — how we could pos- 
sibly have risked ourselves to ride on a steam-car 
with single track, as we once did, when there was no 
telegraph wires, or even the whistle, to tell us of 
danger ahead. 

But here again the investigation as a principle or a 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 267 

science apparently stops. I have never seen, even 
from the pen of Professor Morse himself while 
he lived (and I am sure I have not from any other 
man), any statement as to how this mystery, if 
one, may be solved — viz., how this agent, electricity, 
subtle indeed as it is, can travel over almost unlimited 
space in a moment of time, and carry its message with 
it. This, however, is very easily explained and made 
clear to any intelligent mind, and which I will endeavor 
to do in the proper time and place. 

ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE. 

I must now mention another principle far more 
important than the telegraph, and which first prompted 
me to undertake this arduous work, viz., the use of 
electricity as a curative for the aches and ills of life. 
This general fact should interest mankind in propor- 
tion as the health and comfort of the body are supe- 
rior to the possession of dollars and cents. I am 
perfectly surprised, however, to see the apathy that 
exists in the minds of men of science — men of high 
attainments in other branches of learning, sofhe of 
whom have spent their lives, others their fortunes, 
delving after things of minor importance, while this 
all-important principle has been let oitircly alone ; 
whereas, if they had investigated it, other important 
matters and facts would have been discovered that 
would have been of great advantage to them and to 
mankind generally. Volumes by the hundred and 
thousand have been written on the various moans oi 
cure by medicines, water, and other remedies, while 
this principle of electrical phenomena, which is really 



268 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

the foundation of all cure by any pathy whatever, has 
been almost, if not entirely, let alone. And what 
is the reason ? we urgently ask. I answer again, 
ignorance, prompted by or from selfishtess — sheer 
selfishness, I mean — and that too with men high, 
even upon the hill-top of science and learning in 
other things — men to whom we generally look for 
our knowledge, as a stranger does to a proper guide- 
board at the roadside, expecting, of course, to be 
directed in the right direction. 

Few men ever undertake any business whatever, 
unless they first inquire whether they will be bene- 
fited ; or, whether the undertaking, after a certain 
outlay, will constitute their greatest profit, diregtly 
or indirectly. If they are assured that money can be 
made, they will embark in the undertaking; if not, 
the idea or plan will be abandoned. 

In the study of electricity as a science or principle 
out of which money may be made, little has been 
accomplished. Much time, and money too, have 
been wasted by different individuals in trying to use 
electricity as a motive power for machinery, that has 
proved a failure, which fact, without doubt, has been 
a hindrance to a further investigation as to its use 
for a higher, finer, and more important purpose, viz., 
a healing medium for the diseased body, or for the 
balancing up of the many unbalanced conditions of 
the human system known as disease. 

In discussing this principle of ignorance on the 
subject of electricity among learned men, I have par- 
ticular reference to the medical profession; and as 
long as they are unwilling to inform themselves, and 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 269 

remain ig-norant upon the subject, of course their 
patrons, or those who put themselves under their care, 
and look to them for medical advice, will remain 
uninstructed also. I hope to be understood here to 
mean not merely ignorance of its utility as a healing 
medium, but also of the grand, even sublime, laws 
that govern electricity throughout nature. My desire, 
also, is to be particularly understood that I intend 
not to assail or attack any party or pathy whatever 
of the medical brotherhood, only as it may be wholly 
unavoidable by inference, so natural among all parties 
where differences of opinion prevail. 

My object, then, is to enlighten all parties or per- 
sons, whoever they may be and whatever may be their 
practices or prejudices, whether artizans, philosophers, 
physicians, or their patrons. As a physician among 
physicians, my object shall be unbiassingly to en- 
deavor to bring certain apparently hidden truths to 
light, which to many of them, as well as to their 
patrons, have to the present time been undeveloped 
and unappreciated. 

COMMON ELECTRICITY DEFINED. 

What, then, is common electricity, beyond what 
we have already advanced? It is also galvanism, 
magnetism, mesmerism, ncrvo-vital force or fluid, 
with many other names, mostly derived from the dis- 
coverers or the manner of discovery. Galvanism was 
said to be discovered in the year 1 79 1, by Galvani, 
then professor of surgical anatomy at Bologna ; or. 
more truthfully, perhaps, it was discovered by his 
wife during his absence from home. She observed 



23 



270 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

the effect which electricity produced upon the nerves 
of dead animals through the accidental contact of»the 
conductor of an electrical machine with the crural 
muscle and lumbar nerve of a frog's leg, which had 
been dressed for food, and was upon the table near 
the machine in the professor's laboratory. This 
contact immediately produced violent convulsions in 
the frog, which phenomena she observed and related 
to her husband on his return. Galvani then tried 
many very interesting experiments, both upon dead 
and live animals, to his satisfaction ; hence the name 
of galvanism was given to this particular phenomena 
of electricity. Magnetism was made known by 
Magnes, an Ionian shepherd, who discovered it in 
the loadstone, or magnetic ore. Mesmerism received 
its name from Mesmer; it is but common electricity 
produced between two persons coming in contact with 
each other. The variety of phases which can thus be 
produced, is the result of the different electrical con- 
ditions of those persons, as it can be proved that all 
are not continually in the same electrical state, even 
when the general health is the same, but are unavoid- 
ably changed by the daily variations or changes of 
the plus or minus condition of the circumambient 
atmosphere which they are continually inhaling. 
Nervo-vital fluid is so called because it is known to 
demonstrate itself upon the nerves only. . 

SELFISHNESS THE CAUSE OF THE IGNORANCE OF THE 
USE OF ELECTRICITY. 

The ignorance among educated physicians in using 
electricity as a general curative for all diseases, or 



COMMON ELE CTRICITY. 2/ 1 

diseased conditions, arises in a great degree from 
selfishness. What Httle they may have learned in 
college of its common use as a curative led them to 
believe that to use it in general would require much 
more time than the use of medicine, besides extra 
manual labor; or, in other words, not half as much 
money could be earned, and that not so easy, in a 
given time, as could be by any other medical pathy, 
without taking into account whether more lives could 
be saved by its use. Consequently, the first class 
chose to remain ignorant of the potency, or rather 
the invaluable use of electricity as a curative, and, if 
so, of course the students whom they instruct must 
follow in their path, and are sent out over the world 
with nothing higher or better than the old routine of 
medicine in some of its special modes of administra- 
tion, according to the college from which they gradu- 
ated. It is easy to see why the people at large, who 
depend on their family physician for advice, should 
prefer the old beaten track of medicine in some of its 
forms, when told, as they are many times, that elec- 
tricity may be a good thing, but that it will not do 
in their case. 

I hope my medical brethren who do not exactly 
agree with me in practice will pardon my plainness, 
and that they will hear me through with as much 
candor and sober honesty, for the general good of 
mankind, as I feel in undertaking this work. 

MERITS OF COMMON ELECTRICITY. 

Having endeavored in some degree to show that 
selfishness is the great cause of the prevailing igno- 



2/2 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

ranee on this v/hole subject, let us proceed to discuss 
more particularly the merits of common electricity. 
Many persons do not appreciate, to any great degree, 
the fact of the universality or general diffusibility of 
electricity. They know that they can kindle a fire 
by the use of a little friction match, but how the pro- 
cess is accomplished, or why there should be such a 
result, they have but little idea, and are satisfied with 
their ignorance. Some will say, perhaps, that electric- 
ity in some way produced the fire, but whether from 
the phosphorus, the atmosphere, or the pine stick, 
they cannot tell. 

We repeat again that electricity is an universal 
agent, permeating alike all nature, air, earth, water, 
and both animate and inanimate creation — no speck, 
space, or atom in the wide universe but is filled with 
it. At every inspiration we inhale a large amount 
of it. The food we eat and the water we drink are 
charged with it. You cannot drive your horse over 
a stone pavement on a dark night, without seeing a 
flash of the electric spark at almost every step. 

The origin of this so-called mysterious agent is in 
the great centre of all light and heat, the sun, and 
from it is poured down continued streams of electricity, 
not only filling the air, but every plant, flower, and 
blade of grass receive their due proportion. 

" It warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent! " 

Through these various channels of health — air, food, 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 2/3 

and water — the system is continually charged with 
this vital fluid. Hence the problem is readily solved, 
why the use of waters charged with different mineral 
ingredients oftentimes effect radical cures, where a 
long course of medicine has failed. 

AFFINITY FOR MINERALS. 

Electricity has a strong affinity for all minerals, as 
iron, salt, sulphur,etc., but more particularly for iron, for 
this reason — springs of water highly impregnated with 
iron have cured many of various diseases, because by 
their use a vast amount of vital fluid or electricity is 
taken into the system, which, according to this theory, 
is the only health-producing agent. 

Yet it may also be the producer of disease, and 
might be used so that death instead of life might be 
the immediate result, as has been the case many times 
with medicines improperly administered, or even good 
wholesome food when taken to excess. Ignorance 
develops itself in the operator because he has not 
taken time and care sufficient to understand the agent 
or principle he has undertaken to use, while at the 
same time the person operated upon is made ignorant 
in proportion to the incompetence or inexperience 
of the operator, and the general system is not only 
brought into disrepute, but doomed to be laid aside, 
and the beneficial effects to the sufferer lost now and 
forever from this first grand cause, wilful igiioya)icc. 

IDENTITY OF OXYGEN AND ELECTRICITY. 

The identity of oxygon and electricity will be next 
considered together with the relations they sustain 

S 



2/4 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

and the duties they perform in the circulation of the 
blood. 

Oxygen, I remark, is truly, in one sense, a com- 
pound substance, but chemists have not considered it 
so, since they have ever failed, to the best of my 
knowledge, to decompose it, and it has never been 
decomposed except in the laboratory of the lungs. 
Oxygen and electricity are not only identical, but 
really one and the same substance ; or rather the chit, 
kernel, or virtue of pure oxygen, such as is contained in 
the atmosphere when clear and pure (not the manu- 
factured article), is electricity. Electricity is encased 
in tiny vesicles of fluid, and when taken into the lungs, 
where it comes in contact with the blood for the pro- 
cess of its purification, is strongly attracted by the 
iron in the blood, for which it has a great affinity. As 
I have before stated, it bursts forth from its watery 
prison-house and unites with the blood, leaving the 
water to be exhaled, together with the carbon and 
other impurities it has extracted from the blood, which 
fact is patent and known to all, namely, that a large 
amount of moisture is exhaled always, but none in- 
haled, because the electricity holds it in its grasp till 
it is ready to dispose of it in the lungs, where it has 
found a more congenial friend, or where it can put 
itself to a higher and better use, namely, to purify 
the blood ; the particulars of which I shall speak of 
more in detail hereafter. 

COMPONENT PARTS OF A HEALTHY ATMOSPHERE. 

First, however, I must mention, in passing, the 
exact component parts of a healthy atmosphere, for 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 2/5 

the benefit of those who have not before learned the 
fact, or, if they have, may have forgotten. The atmos- 
phere is most healthy when it is most dense or dry, 
and the current is from the west, north-west, or north, 
rather than from any other points of compass. And 
why ? Merely because it is charged with more elec- 
tricity at those times. Such an atmosphere has about 
twenty-one parts oxygen or electricity and seventy- 
nine parts nitrogen ; or so near one-fifth of the former 
and four-fifths of l^e latter, that we call them thus. 

When breathing such air we invariably feel brisk 
and lively ; but when breathing an east, south-east, or 
south wind, when there is probably not more than 
one-sixth or much less oxygen or electricity in it, we 
always feel dull and more languid than before. Hence 
persons seek the hills or mountains for a healthy 
resort, because of the air being more dry, and of 
course charged with more electricity, or vital fluid, as 
some choose to call it, which to me is all the same. 
Many have even been cured of lung and other dis- 
eases by going to the mountains of Europe, or of our 
own country, or to the west in Minnesota, or farther 
west still, even to Colorado, where, we are told, the 
air is always dry and bracing, and because it contains 
a larger amount of pure oxygen or electricity, or vital 
principle, than is found in this level country. 

. CLEANSING AND CIRCULATING THE BLOOD. 

The next, but not less important matter connected 
with this vital principle in the lungs, is the cleansing 
of the blood, which is carried o\\ at the same time. 
It is here, in the lungs only, where the blood is 



2/6 ELECTRICITY AS A CURA TIVE AGENT. 

cleansed, and not in the stomach and with medicines, 
as has long been the loud cry, and is yet, by many of 
the makers and venders of patent and other mixtures, 
— but more on this subject in its proper place. 

Next in order, and more interesting, too, is the 
fact or truth that the blood is not only purified in the 
lungs by oxygen or electricity, but is propelled to the 
extremities of the system and brought back again by 
the power contained in the lungs through this agent — 
electricity — and not by suction or hydraulic pressure 
of the heart, as the books and modern physiologists 
tell us, or would have us believe. And why ? Merely 
because of ignorance on this subject of electric force 
they have not discovered anything better. 

In order to be more explicit, as well as to make 
myself wholly understood by those who are not much 
acquainted with the old, rusty ^ irrational, as well as 
unphilosophical theory of cleansing and circulating 
the blood, I shall be obliged to use a little argument 
abstractly. 

The best physiologists and anatomists tell us that 
a common-sized healthy man has about three gallons 
of blood in his system, and that this blood performs 
its circuit through the entire system once in about 
three minutes. Allowing for the very small quantity 
that moves very sluggishly through the capillaries and 
corpuscles, — if we may be allowed the expression, — 
there still remains enough for the general circulation ; 
so that about fifty-six gallons, or nearly a hogshead 
of blood, performs its circuit every hour of our being, 
which may be true. Furthermore, we are told that 
to perform this great work, it requires a motive power 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 2// 

of fifty tons, or one hundred thousand pounds' weight 
or pressure, which may also be true. But that this 
great work is performed or carried on by the suction 
or hydraulic power or principle contained in the 
heart, a little muscle weighing less than one pound, 
cannot be true, and must be false. A more mon- 
strous libel, or more absurd idea, never obtained 
publicity than this. A dozen of the very best inven- 
tors from this or the old country, with all their inge- 
nuity combined, could not invent a machine of the 
very strongest metal, of the size of the heart, that 
would not be torn to atoms before it would sustain 
one-tenth part of that pressure. Yet this is the phil- 
osophy taught in the books and medical schools of 
Philadelphia to-day, while I am writing. Why could 
not rational men have seen this monstrosity, this great 
inconsistency, long, long ago, and not have propagated 
such an absurd principle, even to this enlightened 
age and people of the nineteenth century ? No other 
or better reason can possibly be assigned than the 
one already given, viz., a morbid willingness to remain 
ignorant. Such ignorance with regard to so impor- 
tant a principle, and universal as well as useful agent, 
when studied and understood, as it may or can be, I 
deem wholly inexcusable. 

But to change my base from the abstract to the 
concrete, I remark first that this great work or motiv^e 
power is contained in electricity alone. Many are 
aware of its extreme subtlety, but not of its great 
motive power when properly harnessed. We can 
only measure it by its results or effects on our senses. 
To be more explicit, I remark, se^condly, that the 
24 



2/8 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

lungs are kept continually plus or positive by the 
electricity of the atmosphere. The blood, coming into 
the lungs from the extremities of the system through 
the heart in a negative or impure state, is cleansed or 
changed from this purple and impure condition to 
pure or positive blood ; and as two positives cannot 
remain together, but must repel, the blood thus 
changed and positive is repelled and forced over to 
the left ventricle of the heart into the aorta, and thence 
into the smaller arteries to the extremities of the sys- 
tem, the heart doing just the work, and that only, it 
was designed to do by its great Designer and Maker, 
viz., to regulate the circulation of the blood, and not 
to give any motive power whatever; doing just the 
work, and that only, that the pendulum of a well- 
regulated clock does — regulates the power or pressure 
already applied, which indeed is a very important as 
well as responsible work. The auricles and ventricles 
are so constructed as to permit only just so much 
blood to pass at one opening and shutting. They can 
be made to work faster or slower, like the valves of a 
pump, according to the pressure in the lungs, as is 
manifest when a man is engaged in hard work, or has 
been running until his breathing is very rapid, and a 
vast amount of this motive electricity from the atmos- 
phere is taken into the lungs in a short space of time ; 
the pressure then, of course, is greatly increased, so as 
to cause not only rapid, but heavy motion of the valves 
of the heart, such as we all have experienced many 
times. The blood is thus forced through the heart 
and onward to the extremities of the system, where 
we find it, after passing through the capillary arteries 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 2/9 

into the veins in an impure negative state, having 
lost its red color and entire positive electrical condi- 
tion on its outward passage from the lungs. At this 
particular juncture, modern physiologists will agree 
with me. But how, we ask them, is this negative 
blood to be got back again ? No satisfactory, rational 
way is given in the books even, nor taught in any of 
our medical colleges to-day. A few unphilosophical 
forces are laid down and taught in the books, which 
are unsatisfactory to themselves or authors, and they 
leave the subject by saying that it is not clear how 
this part of the circulation is performed. For our 
part, we think the latter about as clear and as rational 
as the former, knowing that the two circulations must 
exactly balance each other, in order to avoid conges- 
tion ; that the blood through the veins must return to 
the heart with the same velocity or force that it went 
out through the arteries, as the two never mingle. 
But here is the puzzle they have ever been in, and out 
of which I will soon lead them, if they will candidly 
follow me through. 

The blood, as before stated, at the extremities of 
the system, is in an impure negative state, just as it 
should be for our purpose and theory. The lungs, 
remember, are always positive. This negative blood 
is, then, of course, attracted by the positive lungs, so 
that it commences its march first slowly back to the 
lungs; but as it comes nearer home it is more strongly 
attracted, of course, until it goes bounding along 
towards the heart, passing, as it does, through the 
right ventricle for equal distribution again into the 
lungs, where it is again cleansed or ox}-gonizcd, but 



28o ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

more properly electrified and rendered pure and 
positive, and again sent out as before with the same 
velocity — attraction and repulsion, as before stated, 
being equal. 

Some interested persons say that my theory is very 
fine, indeed, if it were feasible, or if some good proof 
could be advanced of its correctness. True, indeed, 
but please be fair and honest. Why ask proof of my 
theory, when none has been asked of the old and in- 
consistent one laid down in the books, and to-day 
taught in the schools and colleges of this our proud 
city, Philadelphia, as being correct? One thing is 
very clear and indisputable, — that the starting-point 
of the circulation of the blood is not in the heart ; 
that the depot, if any, is not there. The old theory 
agrees with us that the blood is cleansed in the lungs, 
and rendered pure or red and positive only there, 
which goes far to prove also that the power or principle 
contained there to cleanse or purify it, may be also 
the same to start its motion and propel it forward. 
This indeed is true. It is sent forth through the 
heart, which only opens and closes its valves as a 
common pump does for the water to pass through it 
which has been forced there by the power of the lever, 
the heart acting at the same time as a regulator of the 
circulation. 

Another asks this question : — How do you know 
that the blood is negative at the extremities ? I 
answer, first, that fact is self-evident from its appear- 
ance or color, being in an opposite state or condition 
from what it was when it left the lungs ; and, secondly, 
known to be so by analyzation, as every chemist knows 
who has tried it. 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 28 1 

Another natural and very interesting proof will now 
be added. We asked an advocate of the old theory, 
one day, while discussing this subject, why there were 
small nerves laid all along the arteries, and none 
along the veins. He replied he could not tell, as 
there were other things about the circulation not well 
defined or made very clear. " Well," said I, " then 
you would like to have us tell you, if we can ?" ** Oh, 
certainly," he said. 

Here is, indeed, a very interesting point, which I 
shall endeavor to make plain and well understood, 
viz., to show how this grand animal-machine, this 
wonderful galvanic battery each and every man pos- 
sesses, is being continually charged for his special 
use, in order that he may be able to carry on such a 
vast amount of business during the tedious hours of 
mental and physical labor. ^ 

* REFUTATION OF MRS. EMMA WILLARD'S THEORY OF 
THE CH^CULATION OF THE BLOOD. 

After the above was written, and the book in press, I was explaining 
to a publisher my new theory of the circulation of the blood, when he re- 
marked that my views resembled the " Willardian System,',' as explained 
in a work recently published, entitled, Ari, Literature, and Science, 
by Mrs. Elmira Lincoln Phelps, a sister of Mrs. Emma Willard. As 
found on page 298 of this book, the subject is there called ** Circulation 
by Respiration." This is, indeed, the beginning or cracking only of 
the shell, without tasting of, or finding even, the kernel. Mrs. Wil- 
lard's theory is in one sense right, and in another wrong: The blood, 
indeed, as I have explained above, receives its cleansing and accelerated 
velocity through respiration, but not at all by it. She has indeed made 
a strong assertion, and set forth a theory without a particle of proof, 
and why ? Because her premises were wrong ; she did not start right — 
just as you cannot prove a problem in algebra or Euclid because you 
have not just the right figures in their right places in the statement. 
On page 302 it is further asserted that " respiration causes lieat." 
That is also correct. It is then asked, "what causes respiration?' 
24* 



282 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

There are myriads of tiny nerves all along the 
arteries for the sole purpose of inducing the electricity 
from the blood as it passes to the extremities, which 
are connected with the great sympathetic nerve in the 
spine, and thus, of course, with the brain, or rather 
with both brains, — the cerebrum, which controls our 
thoughts and actions, or all voluntary motion when 
awake ; and the cerebellum, or back brain, which con- 
trols or regulates our digestion, circulation, respiration, 
and all involuntary motion while we are asleep or in 
an unconscious state. The electricity we get from 
the food we eat and the water we drink does not 

which question is not answered, but Mrs. Willard continues by saying: 
" My simple explanation is that caloric coming in contact with the 
blood in the lungs warms and expands it, and by its expansive force 
produces movement, and the fluid, seeking to find space, rushes on 
through the pulmonary veins to the heart, and thus on to the extremi- 
ties of the system," 

This theory is indeed more rational than the old, but as it is it fails for 
two unavoidable reasons : 

First, if the blood be expanded in the lungs by caloric, or the natu- 
ral principle of expansion of fluids, the force is equal in all directions, 
and it would be natural and just as easy for the blood to be thrown back- 
ward in the lungs as forward, and suffocation with immediate death 
would be the inevitable result. The theory thus destroys itself. 

The second and greatest mistake Mrs. Willard makes, and which 
she cannot avoid, because of her premises being wrong in the outset, is 
in getting a power to bring the blood back again from the extremities 
of the system, for the venous and arterial circulations being equal, the 
motive power that constitutes both must be equal, of course — there 
being no steam-engine or additional caloric there after the blood has 
passed from the capillary arteries to the capillary veins, and become 
negative, as we there find it, to drive it back again. 

This theory, it must be perceived, is no better in this particular than 
the old threadbare system; but the true principle of circulation is thor- 
oughly explained and made clear by my theory of equal balance through 
the positive and negative forces of electricity. 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 283 

benefit us directly from the stomach, where they were 
deposited, but by a mysterious net-work connection 
of transverse nerves connects with the great sympa- 
thetic nerve of the spine, and thence conducted to the 
brain for the use of the body through the agency of 
the mind, about which I have as yet said nothing. 
Now there must be a general depot or magazine 
somewhere for deposits. Indeed there is. 

OFFICE OR USE OF THE CORPUS CALLOSUM. 

The mind, that immortal, imperishable part of our 
existence, holds this great controlling power of which 
I am to speak. It wields its sceptre at will, and if the 
man-machine is in good working order, it moves him 
or causes him to be quiet at pleasure — only, however, 
through its willing and ever obedient servant, electric- 
ity. The mind, as you know, cannot leave its destined 
throne — it merely holds out its sceptre and directs. 
Where, then, we ask, is the exact place or deposit, or 
where is this servant electricity to be found? We 
answer not in the cerebriivt, nor in the cercbcUmn, nor 
in the brain at all, but in the corpus callosiim, an organ 
at the base, or near the base, of both brains, and for 
which no particular use in the books is assigned — a 
discovery of the use or office of the corpus callosuDi^ 
the seat of the eternal mind, hitherto unknown 
to scientists, and unexplained in the books. There, 
and there only, in our opinion, is the throne or 
citadel of the eternal mind, and the exact place where 
the vital forces of electricity are basined up for its par- 
ticular use, and can, by nature's laws, be readily called 
forth, whether we are awake or asleep. Man}- under- 



284 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

Stand, in some degree, what a power the mind has 
over the body, and yet know little or nothing, per- 
haps, how that power manifests itself, as it does some- 
times, so wonderfully upon any portion or organ of 
the body when called there by circumstances. The 
mind, as before stated, is not a movable thing to any 
portion of the body ; it is, without doubt, stationary. 
Then what is ? Electricity, certainly, its ever obedient 
servant, going instantly wherever the mind chooses 
to send it. It can be made to act upon the digestive 
organs in general, or upon any one organ in particular. 
For instance, many persons cannot look upon an ob- 
scene or exceedingly filthy object after eating a hearty 
meal of good wholesome food without its making 
them sick in a very short time, and causing them to 
vomit, which is a common and well known circum- 
stance. It will also act just as readily upon the nerves 
and muscles when, by a change of circumstances, it 
is called there. One example only. A lady patient 
of mine, whose back was not strong, related to me 
the following : She said she was riding in a carriage 
in the northern part of our city, and about crossing the 
Germantown railroad track, when suddenly a locomo- 
tive with a train of cars came round a curve with a 
rush, and passed swiftly by in front of the horse and 
carriage, so that the driver, she said, had to turn the 
horse one side a little to escape, as she thought, being 
hit by the passing train. She said she did not move 
in her seat, as she could not for the fright at first, but 
as soon as they saw themselves all safe, untouched 
and unhurt, of course, her back commenced aching 
fearfully. She said, if it had been twisted once entirely 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 285 

round it could not have felt worse. She was obliged 
to keep her bed for several days on account of it. 

What are all these examples but actions of the mind 
upon the body through this wonderful agent, electric- 
ity, as its servant? We might add much more upon 
this topic that would be of interest, perhaps, to the 
seeker after health, or the best way to avoid disease, 
but will dismiss the subject for the present with the 
addition of one thought, viz., How apparent, then, 
is the fact, in order to have a vigorous body, that 
the magazine, the store-house for vitality, or electric- 
ity, should not only be just where it is, in the right 
place, but that it should be like our granaries or 
cellars for a long and tedious winter — well filled, and, 
if possible, kept so ? 

IDENTITY OF OXYGEN AND ELECTRICITY AGAIN. 

A few words more with regard to the identity of 
oxygen and electricity. Many proofs may be adduced, 
if we had time to dwell upon them. We shall only 
mention one, which, we think, for our purpose, will be 
conclusive. 

An experiment like the following has been per- 
formed, which will prove two things. A healthy 
animal was slain, and two quarts of the blood caught, 
being, of course, about equal parts of arterial and 
venous blood, and each quart put into separate blad- 
ders ; one was hung up where the west or north-west 
wind blew briskly upon it, the other quart was placed 
in the laboratory, where the air could not much affect 
it, and where a primary current of electricity from a 
proper battery was run directly through it. In the 



286 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

course of an hour or so the blood in the bladder in 
the air was quite changed, from a dark to a florid or 
red color, on the side where the wind blew on it, and 
in as far as the influence seemingly penetrated only ; 
while the other, through which the currents of 
electricity had passed, was v/hoUy changed into red 
blood, and in less time, too, than an hour, as in the 
other case. This goes not only to prove, in the first 
place, their identity, but also that electricity from a 
proper battery, as well as from the atmosphere, would 
do the same thing in cleansing the blood and render- 
ing it positive. 

ELECTRICITY AS DEVELOPED IN INANIMATE NATURE. 

We will now turn our attention fora few moments to 
common electricity as developed in inanimate nature. 

The sun, that great luminar}^ in the heavens, and 
the centre of our solar system, is the source of all 
electricity, and is continually distributing a proper 
quantity to all the different planets under his control 
— first, to give them motive power for the perform- 
ance of their different circuits ; and secondly, to vivify 
and give life to everything belonging to their surface. 

How beautifully, then, does he prove himself to be 
the life-giving principle to the world, beholding, as 
we do, in the opening of spring, everything opening into 
life from the long and apparent death-sleep of winter, 
caused by the absence of this now welcome messenger. 
Thus we see the earth not only turning on its axis so 
accurately once in twenty-four hours, and also swing- 
ing in its orbit around this great electric centre every 
year, by the positive forces of electricity, and thus 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 28/ 

performing such magnificent gigantic works, but we 
see the myriads of tiny insects, as also the little seeds 
long buried in the cold earth, all showing signs of 
animal and vegetable life by one and the same agent. 
Electricity, then, without doubt, is the great source of 
life to the world of matter, to the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms, causing all the multifarious changes visi- 
ble to our senses. 

We hold, then, that electricity, coming as it does 
from its great centre in the heavens, the sun, acts in 
concert with nature in producing life and vitality out 
of that which before was all cheerless and dead, 
apparently, and thus not only causing all nature her- 
self to look so beautifully as well as move so harmo- 
niously, but it also acts just as readily negatively, or 
in the opposite direction, in producing disturbance by 
throwing the elements out of balance, as is seen 
oftentimes by the gathering of the dark and porten- 
tous storm-clouds, when the muttering thunder in 
the distance gives the warning that the elements are 
again out of balance. 

The hurricane sweeps along with such velocity as 
almost to lay prostrate everything before it, in its 
haste to restore the necessary equilibrium in some 
portion of the globe where the vacuum had been pro- 
duced. But now the storm is passed — all is still 
again. The equilibrium is restored, and a healthy 
state of the atmosphere is the result, as we have 
many times experienced. The immediate life-giving 
or vital principle of electricity imparted to vegetation 
in various ways is doubtless very great. 

A brief notice of one very simple discovery, which 



288 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT, 

was afterwards tested by experiment, must suffice. 
Some few years ago a peasant in England observed 
in his garden that one hill of potatoes grew much 
taller and looked much more thrifty and healthful 
the whole season than any of its neighbors on the 
same soil, and with only the same attention or culture, 
and found, when harvested, to produce a larger quan- 
tity, as well as better quality, but could discover no 
cause whatever, except on digging down considerably 
below the roots he pulled up an old rusty iron hoop. 
Not satisfied with this, the next year he tried it on 
two or three more hills, in different localities, and 
found similar results. He then communicated the 
facts to a good chemist, who, after several tests and 
experiments, concluded that it must be from the 
extra amount of electricity from the atmosphere at- 
tracted there by the iron, for which it has a peculiar 
affinity. To test it a little further, another, and little 
different but more accurate test was tried, by planting 
a continued wire under one entire row of potatoes, 
and leaving every other row without any — all on the 
same soil, and the same or similar results were mani- 
fest in the fall when the potatoes were harvested. 
It was decided that it was the soft iron wire which 
attracted a continuous current of electricity from the 
atmosphere, which also caused a greater amount of 
moisture to be secreted there, leaving the soil more 
light and arable. Since then it has become quite a 
common practice in that country among gardeners, 
where soil is more valuable than it is here. 

The above is only another proof, as you see, of the 
independent vital power of electricity. 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 289 

CENTRIFUGAL AND CENTRIPETAL FORCES. 

Leaving this quite interesting phenomena, or vital 
demonstration, of common electricity, I am obliged 
to hasten to say a few things concerning the two 
prominent forces known as plus and minus, or posi- 
tive and negative, and which constitutes attraction 
and repulsion. By these two forces all nature is not 
only balanced, but kept in balance. And in doing so, 
I must necessarily make a short warfare upon old and 
stereotyped opinions laid down in the books of our 
common philosophy taught in the schools years ago, 
and for aught I know to-day, while I am penning 
these lines, as I have seen nothing yet in print to 
the contrary. I refer now more particularly to the 
moving of the planets of our own solar system, or 
rather to the power by which they are moved, kept in 
motion, and in their own respective spheres. Profes- 
sor Brewster, in the former part of this work, has 
referred to this fact, but by no means is it made clear 
and distinct there. 

We know they are effected by two forces, which 
is doubtless true ; and those two forces are called in 
the books cmtriftigal and centripetal, which is not 
true. When in my academic course, and studying 
my natural philosophy about those two forces in 
nature regulating the motion of the earth and other 
planets, I was never satisfied, and had several disputes 
with my teacher about those unmeaning terms, as 
well as forces, — centrifugal and centripetal, — being 
anxious to know in what they consisted, or how they 
might be defined in order to make the principle 
understood, but was ever turned away without an 
25 T 



290 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

answer, except that it was mysterious or God-given 
forces, and the matter always remained mysterious 
until I found out the principle by a careful study of 
the laws of electrical phenomena, which, when under- 
stood, makes it so plain we only wonder that it has 
remained a mystery so long. 

THE EFFECT OF THE TWO FORCES. 

We will notice more particularly the effect of the 
two forces, or rather their concert of action upon our 
own planet, the earth, in its diurnal motion, which, 
perhaps, will be more easily understood. One signifi- 
cant fact concerning the lav/s that govern electricity, 
when once understood, is, they are never known to 
change or vary. And why ? Because they are the 
laws of nature, and made by an infinitely wise and 
changeless being. The earth turns on its axis once 
in twenty-four hours, and never varies or changes — 
never gains or loses any time. But where exists the 
power that does this great and hitherto called mys- 
terious work ? The books fail to inform us. They 
say it is God's work, and therefore mysterious. This 
is true. And so is our being — so is the growth of a 
blade of grass or corn. God's works are mysterious 
in many respects, even in these last facts, simple and 
plain as they may seem. And we have arrived at 
plain and self-evident causes that produce these 
effects. But what with regard to the other ? What 
turns this mighty globe around with such tremendous 
velocity, as well as accuracy ? I answer, it is done by 
attraction and repulsion, or, in other words, by the 
combined positive and negative forces of electricity 



COMMON ELECTRIC TTY. 29 T 

acting continuously upon it from the great electric 
centre, the sun. It will be remembered that the sun 
is nearly vertical at the equator, only varying some 
twenty-three and a half degrees either way, and of 
course shining directly, or nearly so, upon one side 
of the earth, and thereby rendering it positive, while 
at the same time the opposite side is in darkness, as 
at midnight to us, and, of course, electrically in the 
opposite state and negative. Then, as positives always 
repel each other, the greater conquering or repelling 
the weaker, the earth being fixed, immovable as to 
its position in its orbit, and being, as we suppose it to 
be, like a ball hung upon two axles, it must of neces- 
sity commence turning round, even if it were before 
standing still, just as a water-wheel does when water 
is turned on one side of it. Then, as it turns over, a 
negative side is brought towards the sun, which, by 
the positive sun is strongly attracted, so that we have 
the two equal forces, attraction and repulsion, like a 
rope round a pulley, acting upon it to give it a rolling 
motion, which never has nor can vary as long as God 
sees fit to continue it. 

This is only one instance in which some of his 
grand, natural laws are made known to our senses. 
Another is shown us in the exactness and harmony 
manifested in the laws that give and govern the 
motion of all the planets of our solar system, not 
only on their own axis, but in their circuits or orbits 
around their great centre, the sun. The unmeaning 
terms of centripetal and centrifugal forces, which have 
no force of themselves, and nowhere to go to borrow 
any, we ignore and throw out entirely, and substitute 



292 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT, 

others, viz., positive and negative, which are real, 
which have a foundation or source in electricity, and 
that emanating from its great inexhaustible fountain, 
the sun. This is something tangible or real — some- 
thing we can understand when we talk about it. 

The earth in its aphelion is in a negative state to 
the sun, and of course attracted by it ; in its course 
towards it, its velocity is very much increased, as well 
as is its positive electrical condition, (just as we grow 
warmer ourselves, or more positive, as we approach 
a fire when cold,) until it becomes equally positive, 
for the time being, with the sun, which is the case 
when the earth is at its greatest perihelion, or at its 
nearest approach to the sun. Then it passes round 
the sun, coming only just so near and no nearer, be- 
cause it cannot on account of its equal positive state, 
but is thrown off again in its orbit — the positive sun 
acting upon it for a time to send it along in its course. 
In going away, however, from the sun into the cold 
region, it begins slowly to lose its positive state, and 
also its motion, becoming more and more negative, as 
well as being now attracted again by the sun, until it 
is finally turned round at its aphelion, as before stated, 
because of the attraction of its great positive centre, 
the sun, towards which it is again attracted. 

What I have now said about our earth, or the laws 
that govern it, may as truthfully be said about all the 
other planets of our solar system. 

WHY THE PLANETS KEEP THEIR PLACES. 

Another very interesting thought here introduces 
itself I am asked how, in my theory, I reconcile the 



COMMON ELECTRICITy. 293 

matter of each planet keeping its place — the larger 
ones far outside of our earth, and away from the sun, 
and the smaller ones inside, and much nearer to him, 
of course. This is a matter not clearly or satisfactorily 
accounted for by the old theory, but very easily with 
this. What I have before said I would here again 
repeat, that a thorough study and right understanding 
of the great law of equilibrium, which governs elec- 
tricity in its positive and negative conditions in the 
great world of nature or of matter, as well as in atoms 
that make worlds, will, in all cases, make everything 
clear and easy to be understood, without a particle of 
mystery, as has hitherto been entertained, concerning 
its phenomena. But ignorance makes mysteries 
anywhere and everywhere. 

It will be remembered that I stated, in the begin- 
ning of this work, that although electricity was a 
universal agent, filling every substance and spot in 
creation, yet some bodies and substances were capable 
of containing much. more electricity than others in 
the immediate neighborhood ; that this was regulated 
by different densities — the most dense bodies con- 
tained the most electricity. It is well known that the 
planets of our system are of different density, this 
being of absolute necessity in order for them to keep 
their places in their spheres. If I had time I would 
specify the exact density of each. I will merely add 
that the little planet Mercury has a comparative 
density in connection with its bulk (which must 
always be taken into account) to place and keep it, 
by this same grand law, just where it is, in its near- 
ness to the su)i. Mars and Venus are governed b\- the 



294 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

same laws, and so on outside of us, until we reach the 
farthest one known to our astronomers. It is because 
these grand natural laws cannot be violated that these 
have not varied from their spheres, and thereby come 
in contact with each other. 

One fact more only, I must notice in passing. It 
will be remembered by many, perhaps, that in the 
fall of 1858, or about fifteen years ago, I think, there 
was a brilliant comet, v/hich made its appearance in 
the north-west very suddenly and unexpectedly, even 
to our astronomers, and which created no small excite- 
ment among the people. Many things were said and 
written about it. One individual more wise, or who 
considered himself so, made out, by a careful calcu- 
lation in figures, that a more providential thing, per- 
haps, had never happened since the world was made, 
than that comet crossing the earth's orbit just when 
and where it did ; stating that if the earth had been 
twenty-four hours later in its orbit or course round 
the sun, we should, in all probability, have been 
dashed to atoms or to chaos, as this earth once was. 
We were not as well posted in the laws that govern 
electricity then as now, or we would have given that 
article a passing rebut. It is very clear, however, that 
that sage did not, by any means, understand the grand 
laws of equilibrium produced in nature by the equal 
or positive and negative forces of electricity as demon- 
strated by, or through, attraction and repulsion. 

Suppose, for instance, that the great and wise 
God and Maker of all worlds had made a small mis- 
take at that time, and allowed this fact to have taken 
place, and we on our earth had been in the direct line 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 2gS 

of this comer. Why, according to this law of elec- 
trical equilibrium, we, in our approach to each other, 
would have obeyed that law, that is, whichever was 
the most positive would have given off to the other, 
until the equilibrium or balance had been produced, 
then each body would have gently swung a little out 
of its direct course, sufficient to pass each other, and 
instead of being dashed to atoms, we should not even 
have felt a sensation sufficient to have spilled a drop 
of our coffee, if we should happened to have been 
taking a cup at the time. 

It is not certain but we may have been in the exact 
line of that comet, from its very sudden and brilliant 
appearance, as there are some four hundred or more 
of them that are passing and repassing our earth's 
orbit without any very definite time of their appearing; 
but for all that, we need not indulge in the fear of any 
injury until this grand law of electrical equilibrium is 
allowed to be broken by the all-wise God who first 
made it. 

ELECTRICAL ACTION UPON THE ANIMAL ECONOMY RE- 
SUMED, WITH NEW DISCOVERIES MADE. 

It has already been distinctly shown that there has 
been a great failure, on the part of men of science, 
in observing the laws that govern electricity upon 
inanimate nature, which fact has had a very great 
tendency to cripple their knowledge on other impor- 
tant subjects, and more directly connected with the 
object before us. Ignorance — my watchword at the 
outset — ignorance, I say, from a failure of investiga- 
tion in the universality and general diffusibility of 



296 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

electricity, creates all the great mistakes made to its 
unalterable laws, as well as power, in the work it is 
now silently doing, and has been doing, in the world 
of animate and inanimate nature, ever since Adam 
was first placed in Paradise. Physiologists and anato- 
mists have ever been puzzled to rightly understand 
from whence this motive power came to carry on the 
work of animal economy, and hence made great 
mistakes, as before stated, with regard to that exceed- 
ingly important principle, viz., the circulation of the 
blood, and finally conclude by saying that after all 
they were in doubt about it themselves. It is very 
easy to arrive at wrong conclusions when we have 
first started wrong, and not only wrong in regard 
to the particular thing aimed at, but wrong in other 
side issues that may be more or less involved or con- 
nected with the whole machinery. For instance, the 
use or uses of the spleen is to-day not understood by 
professors of anatomy, or those who have written on 
the subject, as there is nothing in the books that gives 
us any satisfactory idea of its use, or for what purpose 
it was put into the body. Some two years since, 
one of our first and best city surgeons, who ought to 
be posted on such matters, stated to one of my 
patients, who had just been a patient of his, that this 
organ, the spleen, which he considered in his case 
the most diseased, was really a useless thing ; or, in 
other words, it was not known for what purpose it 
was put into the body except to give a man trouble. 
That was indeed a grave charge upon the great De- 
signer and Maker of us all, that He had made such a 
mistake as that, in cumbering us with such a promi- 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 29/ 

nent and worse than useless organ in our formation. 
The gentleman, nor his sage predecessors, would not 
have remained ignorant of so vitally important a 
matter so long if they had investigated or studied 
more closely the principle of motive power in the 
animal economy, and found, as they would have done, 
that power to be electricity, engendered in the lungs, 
where, and only where, the blood is cleansed, and 
where it receives its momentum, that propels it with 
such wonderful velocity, even to the very extremities 
of the system, where, by a change in its condition, 
caused by its passage outward, it is brought back again 
to and through the negative portion of the heart to the 
lungs by the same equal force as I have before suffi- 
ciently explained. I repeat, then, emphatically, that 
if old prejudices had been laid aside, so that new 
things could have been seen and properly treated, as 
they should have been, new discoveries on the subject 
would have been made long before, and there would 
have been no difficulty in finding out the proper office 
and uses of the spleen. 

We will now endeavor to show, as we think we 
can, to any and every unprejudiced mind, that the 
Almighty Maker and Ruler made no mistake after all, 
and that the spleen is not only far from being a useless 
thing in our organism, but an organ without which 
man could not survive. 

Remember then, first, that in the lungs this great 
motive power that circulates the blood is engendered 
from the continued inspiration of oxygen or electricity. 
When we breathe as we ordinarily do, our circulation, 
together with the pulsations from the heart, are all 



298 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

regular; but when we labor hard, and use much 
strength, or run a long distance, or ride a hard trot- 
ting-horse, or even get excited in any way, so that 
respiration is much hurried, and a greater amount of 
electricity, or this motive power, is thus inhaled in a 
given time, and the lungs thus rendered unusually 
positive and heated, the blood, of course, is sent out 
with more force, and a greater quantity in a given 
time upon its regulator, the heart And as the heart, 
with its valves, is so formed that only just so much 
blood and no more can pass at one opening of its 
oracles or valves, there must be some way to escape 
the approaching inevitable ordeal — congestion and 
death. These valves are capable of increased action 
according to the amount of pressure from the lungs, 
and can endure it for a short time without any material 
injury; but after they are worked to their utmost capac- 
ity, and there is still more blood from the continued, 
and perhaps increased, force from the lungs than can 
possibly pass through the valves, what would be the 
inevitable result but death from congestion or suffoca- 
tion, unless a way had been provided by Him who 
makes no mistakes ? 

Here comes to our aid, then, this very indispensable 
organ and agent, the spleen. This we call a sort 
of sponge and reservoir, into which the blood in such 
cases can slowly recede or soak away, and for a time 
remain quiet, or until this extra pressure is taken off 
(which will not be long, for it usually creates more or less 
pain while there), when it can return, or go back again 
to its proper destination. The spleen being in the left 
side, upon or against the fundus of the stomach, and 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 299 

extending towards the back, is quite out of the way, 
and, like a reserve fund to a bank, only necessary and 
always ready when in health, and wanted for the ex- 
press purpose for which it was created. 

There are not regular veins or arteries leading the 
blood to and from the spleen, but there are infinitesimal 
ducts or leaders through which the blood in its pure 
state (as it then is) can slowly pass in its ingress and 
egress to and from its destination. For a simple 
proof of this theory, I will mention one common cir- 
cumstance, which many of our readers will doubtless 
remember to have experienced in their youth, if not 
in later years, viz., after running a long distance, or 
swiftly for a short one, or riding a hard trotting-horse 
so as to set the blood in violent motion, they were 
attacked suddenly, and severely too, with a pain in 
the left side, when, by stopping the exercise or the 
hurried breathing a few moments only, the pain would 
gradually subside, and by pressing the hand gently 
on the side it would pass away sooner. This pressure 
empties this sponge — spleen — sooner than it would be 
emptied without the pressure. 

More proof might readily be added to substantiate 
our theory, or the position taken with regard to what 
we consider the real, legitimate, and only office of this 
organ, the spleen — the discovery of which was made 
by the careful use and observation of the effects of the 
electrical current upon the human system in my expe- 
rience for the past fifteen years ; but the proof already 
offered is positive, and the facts self-evident. If a 
better and more rational theory can at any time here- 
after be produced for the use o{ the spleen. I shall 



300 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

be happy to give it my attention and candid investi- 
gation; but until that time I shall be satisfied to 
stand firmly upon the ground already taken. 

UNSEEN VITAL FORCE. 

What has already been stated on the general sub- 
ject of this unseen, vital principle, electricity, with 
regard to its diffusibility, its unchangeable laws, how 
in the universe of nature it causes not only the change 
of seasons of heat and cold, storm and sunshine, is 
very readily understood when properly investigated, 
seeing that it is caused by merely a change of polarity 
— namely, what produces heat in one part of our 
earth produces the same degree of cold in another, 
or in the opposite direction, and vice versa. Now the 
human system is but an epitome of the universe of 
nature; or, in other words, man is a universe of him- 
self, acting in one sense in and for himself physically, 
as he does truly in many ways financially. 

For example, we would refer once more to the natural 
elements, as I wish to have this part of our subject 
distinctly and wholly understood. Nature herself 
becomes diseased by a real change of circumstances 
electrically, or by the changes of her electrical polarity, 
and for a time everything is in confusion. A dreadful, 
fearful hurricane passes over us, lays everything mov- 
able in her course prostrate; but by another electrical 
change in her power all things come to rest, and she 
is cured of the disease or difficulty by another and 
opposite change in her polarity. And this is not at 
all mysterious, when carefully studied and wholly 
understood. 



COMMON ELECTRICITY, 3OI 

It is just SO with man as a universe of himself. To- 
day, at this moment perhaps, he may be all quiet and 
well, feeling no inconvenience whatever ; to-morrow, 
or the next hour perhaps, he may be all out of balance 
and convulsed, diseased apparently from head to feet — 
this vital, unseen principle all deranged, and the man 
soon going to ruin and to death unless a sudden favor- 
able change takes place. 

How very many instances like the following: A 
person in health, apparently, eats and relishes a good, 
hearty meal, rises from the table, takes a seat in his 
easy-chair, with his newspaper to read, and in ten 
minutes he is approached, and is found to be dead. 
The vital spark, that living principle, has fled. The 
electrical balance, in his case, was not merely dis- 
turbed, but, from some cause, its channels completely 
clogged, and of course life became extinct at once. 
This, however, is only a solitary instance — one phase 
in which this principle is developed. Cases innumer- 
able might be instanced to show in how many ways 
disease may be discovered by merely this electrical 
balance first becoming disturbed. Enough, however, 
has already been stated in this connection. 

IMPROVEMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE. 

Up to this point I have been treating upon things 
and principles that are to compose the building, and 
should wholly fail of my object or purpose if I should 
stop here and not attempt to show or point out cloarl\', 
if possible, the building itself, or how it is really de- 
signed for the benefit of all who may chance to read 
or hear what I have written. 
26 



302 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

My final object, then, as stated in the outset, is an 
improvement or reform entirely in the diagnosis and 
treatment of disease for the good of all mankind. 
This is not a theme altogether new, yet there are new 
and vitally important ways of getting at and really 
accomplishing valuable aims and ends. 

I am very sure, also, that many will agree with me 
that the time has fully arrived that some improvement 
be made, if any can be, in the treatment and cure of 
acute as well as chronic diseases, from the old routine 
of medical practice, and from any and all poisons as 
remedies, if any such discovery has been made. And 
for me, now, to doubt this fact, will be next to doubt- 
ing my own existence. This fact or principle I have 
been testing and proving for fifteen years or more, to 
my entire satisfaction, and oftentimes to the surprise 
of many who have witnessed the cure of disease as 
if by magic or miraculous power. For instance, to 
stop and break up a severe case of typhoid or typhus 
fever, after it was once seated, with the pulse up to 
one hundred and twenty per minute, and causing a 
profuse perspiration, that continued for twenty-four 
or forty-eight hours, or until the fever was subdued, 
with only one, two, or perhaps three applications ; or 
to cure a case of pneumonia and pleurisy in one or 
two treatments, which we generally do. Even old 
chronic cases are oftentimes cured very suddenly. 
At one time I cured a case of chorea (St. Vitus' dance) 
of eighteen years' standing with only two applications ; 
at another, straightened a little girl's spine with only 
one treatment, and in each case they remained so, 
and the cure permanent. Many others, incurable with 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 303 

medicine, I have cured within the last fifteen years 
that have required a longer course of treatment, and 
have continued well and not relapsed into the old 
state again, as we hear sometimes our opposers have 
erroneously reported. 

OPPOSITION FROM WITHOUT AND WITHIN. 

Electricity has had the whole array of medical 
practitioners, both of the old school and the new, 
with a few honorable exceptions, and the combined 
force of medicine-makers and venders, with their 
millions of blind adherents, with which to contend. 
Still it has withstood all this wonderful array, and even 
grown in strength and in favor with the people, and 
especially with quite a large class of the more intelli- 
gent, thinking ones, who have become disgusted and 
sick of the practice of dosing the stomach with nos- 
trums to heal or cure a disease somewhere else. 

But with all this array of opposition without, none 
has been so formidable as that from within — the 
enemies of its own household — the many who have 
been using it without first having thoroughly studied 
its peculiar laws, or rather the laws that govern it. 

Many physicians, as well as others, have done and 
are doing the same thing to their patients, who have, 
with confidence in their knowledge of electricity as 
learned men, had it applied perhaps for a few times 
to no apparent advantage, if not as an injury, and 
then abandoned it. The failure, of course, laid to 
electricity, instead of to the bungler or ignoramus 
who ventured to apply it. What progress could a 
teacher make in teaching Greek and Latin wlio had 



304 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

spent all his youthful days studying English studies, 
and become a thorough scholar in that department, 
but had never studied either of those dead languages? 
Just none at all. Or what could a carpenter do towards 
building a house with a trowel, brick and mortar, or 
a mason with carpenter's tools and pine wood ? Just 
nothing at all, — simply because they had never 
learned how to work with such tools and materials. 
They can each build houses, but they must have the 
tools and materials to use with which they are ac- 
quainted, and had before learned how to use. 

Just so, emphatically, with my medical brethren 
from the medical schools. They spent their time 
until they graduated in the study and use of medicine 
as a curative, and since they have been in practice 
they have used their best judgment no doubt in its 
use and adaptation for the cure of their patients, 
while electricity was left untouched as a curative, and 
much more so as a thing with which to discover 
disease. It was used in college as a sort of plaything 
for sport or experimenting in certain cases, but not 
studied at all as the all-pervading agent of the uni- 
verse, that gives or takes life everywhere in nature. 
If a cure is made at all by medicine, it is only the 
result of a favorable chemical change in the system, 
which change is the effect of the proper adaptation 
of a positive with a negative, and this again is the 
direct result of a plus and minus current of electric- 
ity as the prime mover, which is capable of a full 
and clear demonstration. Ever since I first located 
in Philadelphia, some twelve and a half years ago, I 
have been urged, from time to time, by persons who 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 305 

had made themselves acquainted in some small degree 
with my system of practice, to write and publish some 
work on the subject, and send it out to educate the 
people in general. The very thing, indeed, I have 
been anxious to do, but the time and labor required 
could not possibly be spared from my already over- 
taxed energies, and the matter has been postponed 
till the present. Even now I shall be obliged to 
abridge my desired plan somewhat on account of un- 
avoidable circumstances. 

Familiarity with anything, or principle, always 
lessens its worth or interest to us, however valuable 
it may be, or however much we may have been 
interested in its first discovery or introduction. I 
well remember the first car, drawn by one horse, 
for the conveyance of passengers, that was ever used, 
I believe, in the United States, and ran between 
Albany and Schenectady, in the State of New York, 
how much was said about the convenience of it at 
that time. But that was soon forgotten. I also 
remember the first use, to any particular advantage, 
made of electricity was the invention of friction 
matches, called then Lucifer matches. This was in 
1837, thirty-six years ago. They were first made of 
pine whittlings, the ends dipped in a preparation of 
sulphur, phosphorus, and emery, and then were drawn 
through two pieces of sand-paper to ignite them. 
They were sold at twenty-five cents per box of fifty. 
This was then considered as one of the great dis- 
coveries of the age. Next came the percussion-cap, 
instead of the old flint-lock, to fire-arms. In many 
other ways, from time to time, electricity has been 
26* U 



306 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

harnessed up for use, being found running wild every- 
where and in every place, and for the use and benefit 
of everybody when wanted, until finally Professor 
Morse made his discovery, which is now being used 
to so much advantage not only in our own country, 
but nearly all over the world. 

But how unaccountably slow did the people move 
to assist him, or even to notice his discovery. He had 
exhausted his energies of mind and body, together 
with his entire fortune, even to the last dollar, and 
was about to give up in despair, when finally Con- 
gress reluctantly stepped forward and appropriated a 
small sum, sufficient to put up one wire from Wash- 
ington to Baltimore for a trial, which, to their aston-. 
ishment, proved a complete success. 

Although electricity has been used ever since the 
days of old ^Esculapius, or more than two thousand 
years ago, to some extent in curing, it has been 
mostly experimental until now, or within a few years. 

The time did not seem to have come, as there seems 
to be a time for every new thing to develop or be de- 
veloped. This was the saying of the wisest man, 
Solomon, and it has been the result of our own expe- 
rience, if we note carefully the past. 

But now it seems very plain to me, and has for 
the past few years, that the time for a thorough 
medical reform has come — that the allwise Creator 
of the universe is, in a multitude of ways, making 
known to mankind how they may get rid in a meas- 
ure of the evils that sin has engendered. And He 
seems to have chosen these United States, or the 
more enlightened people of America, to be, in many 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 307 

instances, the discoverers, or rather, more properly^ 
the setters-forth of His long and deep-laid plans. But 
we have to be content with a slow movement, espe- 
cially when we have a strong power against us, as 
well as great obstacles directly on our track to clear 
entirely out of the way, as is the case in the universal 
sale and use of medicines of all kinds. 

We were nearly one hundred years engaged in 
putting down the slave power and giving the bond- 
man his freedom — a thing considered impossible by 
a very large majority of our people, among whom 
were some very good and conscientious men. Yet it 
was determined and persevered in first by a few, and 
at last accomplished almost to universal satisfaction. 

Very soon after I established myself in Philadel- 
phia as an electrician exclusively, there was a very 
worthy and highly-educated physician, belonging to 
the society of Friends, who had practised medicine 
some forty years or more in Philadelphia, came to 
me and said he was desirous to look candidly and 
honestly into my system of medical practice, or 
rather of cure by electricity alone — said he had read 
carefully my circular, and had heard of some of the 
cures I had made with electricity without any medi- 
cine. After an interview, he expressed a satisfiction 
with my theory and a desire to have a course of in- 
struction, which in due time I gave him. In the 
course of my lectures, I explained to him the now 
theory of cleansing and circulating the blood b>' elec- 
tricity only as the motive power, together with other 
new facts and principles as the direct result o{ these 
new discoveries. After he got through the course, he 



308 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

acknowledged himself very much gratified indeed, 
and fully satisfied that I was right in my theory, and 
concluded by saying that I would have to be very 
patient and wait for the people — that I was at least 
fifty years ahead of the times, and that the people 
would or could only be brought slowly to believe and 
embrace the doctrine to be true and practical, which 
he really believed they would do in time, as he now 
did himself. 

ELECTRICITY A SPECIALTY AS A CURE. 

We have come, finally, to what was my first object 
in the commencement as well as through the whole 
of this argument, viz., to bring satisfactory reasons 
for the adoption of this new system of treatment as a 
specialty, together with the advantages that every 
physician, as well as his patients, would derive, in 
more ways than one, from the exclusive use of elec- 
tricity as a curative agent. 

In the first place, then, and as a first reason for its 
adoption by physicians, it is reliable as an examiner ; 
and secondly, to administer, it is a specific for all 
acute conditions. Neither of these can be said of any 
medicine whatever. Again, all medicines, or all doses 
given, whether great or small, contain more or less 
that is poisonous, and of course operate against nature 
to destroy in part the vital force, even if a benefit is 
afterwards obtained, while electricity is this vital force, 
or vitality itself, and, when properly administered, 
commences with the first application to add to that 
natural vital force instead of depleting or taking it 
away, as is the case with medicines. For instance, I 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 3O9 

have seen many cases, under the use of medicine, and 
have been twice in the same condition myself, when 
the patient was so far gone, or this natural vital force 
so nearly exhausted, that there was 'not enough left 
upon which the medicine could act, and of course it 
could not be given. The doses of course were with- 
held until the patient either rallied or was left to die. 
Not so with electricity. It has been and may be used with 
astonishing results in the most extreme cases — it has, 
in many instances, even brought still-born infants to 
life that would have never breathed without its use. 

In several instances I have been called to use elec- 
tricity only as an experiment for adults who were 
apparently just about expiring, who had been under 
the use of medicine for weeks, and could take no 
more — the vital spark just about departing, when, 
by a gentle current of electricity, wartnth, or the vital 
force, began again to develop, by which an increase 
of the circulation was generated, and in a few days 
the patient was up and convalescent. The reason of 
the phenomena is perfectly simple and clear, because 
electricity is not a stimulant, as some pretend to call 
it — an ephemeral, lasting for only a moment — or 
like good bread and butter and beef, which produce 
vitality as any healthy crude material does, but it is 
vitality per sc, in and of itself, when properly and 
skilfully applied. 

Disease of whatever kind, as I have before said, and 
which I here emphatically repeat, is onl\' an unbal- 
anced condition of the vital forces in the man-machine; 
or, electrically, that is, there is merely too much 
electricity in one part and too little in another, and 



310 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 

that is enough to produce great evil — even the destruc- 
tion of the whole machine in a short time — unless the 
change is speedily wrought. And how much sooner, 
and effectually, too, it can be accomplished by a 
proper electrician, who fully understands the human 
system, and can readily locate the disease, as well as 
administer the proper remedy, and no guesswork or 
guessing, nor feeling of the pulse, after the old style, 
being necessary. 

A very prominent reason why electricity has not 
been adopted more readily by the people in general 
for acute or common diseases, is, because they have 
ever been instructed by their family physician, in 
whom they had confidence, that it was only good for 
old, chronic cases; or, in other words, for conditions 
only that he, their physician, had become weary of, 
and that he could not cure, and, of course, glad in any 
way to get rid of them. Some physicians are honest, 
however, having never seen it applied for fevers, 
dysentery, diarrhoea, pleurisy, or inflammation of any 
kind. In fact, the standard medical works teach the 
same doctrine, viz., that electricity must never be 
applied when there is any inflammation, whereas that 
is our sheet-anclior. Nowhere can we make such 
astonishing, such almost miraculous changes and cures 
as in the most acute, inflammatory, or congestive cases 
imaginable, from any cause whatever. 

If I am to prove what I assert, I must be allowed, 
in this connection, to relate a fact or two of my own 
experience. A lady of rank and respectability, Mrs. 

J. G , was attacked with congestive pneumonia, 

having taken a violent cold. She had two of the best 



COMMON ELE CTRICITY. 3 1 1 

old-school physicians, who used their utmost skill for 
two weeks, but in vain. They then pronounced her 
incurable. Her husband, almost frantic with the idea 
of losing his beloved wife, called to inquire of me 
whether there was a possibility of any benefit from 
electricity. Calling to see her before I could answer 
his question, I found her apparently struggling in the 
agonies of death, with no natural pulse — merely a sort 
of quiver at the wrist — the breathing very laborious, 
and so short that her breath scarcely entered the 
lungs at all — - feeling, as she afterwards expressed it, 
as though one hundred pounds weight lay upon her 
chest. This particular sensation was the result of 
protracted congestion and inflammation, producing 
strictures or stoppages in the entire lungs, even to 
the bronchia. I commenced carefully to cut away 
or remove these first, and give room for deeper inspi- 
rations, if possible. In five minutes, only, I saw indi- 
cations of improvement. She then opened her closed 
eyes, her inspirations became longer and not so 
laborious, and in twenty minutes could quite fill one 
lung and the other partly. Soon after she ventured 
to whisper, so as to tell us that she felt very much 
relieved, when I left her for the night. I saw and 
treated her twice the next day, and found her very 
much improved, and in ten days had her out riding 
in her carriage. She was soon perfectly restored, and 
has enjoyed excellent health ever since. These were 
the facts. 

Now how was this change and cure made so as by 
magic, almost ? Because, seeing at once where the 
enemy was located, I sought to dislodge him, which, 



3 1 2 ELECTRICITY AS A CUR A TIVE A GENT 

by proper treatment, was done, to the utter astonish- 
ment of her friends and attendant physicians. The 
inflammation, of course, had induced a high fever, 
which I subdued in the meanwhile with the treatment. 
The medicine she had taken to reheve her of her 
pains and distress, and to quiet her, had produced 
great constipation of her- bowels, so that they could 
get no motion, even by cathartics ; this I also soon 
overcame by the treatment, which astonished them 
all about as much as anything else. 

One more case only I will mention, and a very 
different one — that of inflammation in the brain of 
a lady on Walnut street, the result of a severe attack 
of puerperal fever, ten days after her confinement, and 
also given up as past being cured by her physician, 
who is one of the first homoeopaths, perhaps, in our 
city. I arrested it soon, and got her up and out in 
only two or three weeks after I was first called to see 
her, though in her usual health she was always 
quite delicate. It was also thought the babe could 
not live, caused by the weak state or condition of the 
mother — it was- made all right, and is now a bright, 
healthy child. 

I have obtained similar results in m.any other cases 
of congestion and acute inflammation, such as fevers, 
bowel complaints, bruises, etc., in all of which they 
had first tried medicine without success ; and when 
hope had about fled, electricity, as an experiment, was 
resorted to, which soon brought a favorable change 
of their condition, and restored them to health, with 
only a few proper treatments. I might fill a volume 
in recital of similar, or even more interesting cases of 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 3 1 3 

cure, where I had been called in the beginning of the 
attack, and Vv^as obliged to make only three or four 
visits ; but I forbear, expecting that if these fail to con- 
vince the incredulous, or stimulate them to make a 
trial, any more evidence would be useless. Mankind, 
we know, are bound not to be drove ; they are to be 
led or coaxed, and if a few well-prepared morsels fail 
to do it, a whole loaf would, from the same principle. 

I have not, nor shall I, in this connection, say 
much, if anything, with regard to the cure of diseases 
in an opposite state, or of a chronic nature, for physi- 
cians and others concede the fact that electricity has 
and does cure those conditions, though medicine 
does not, while in many instances it even aggravates 
or produces them. 

After so much of plain, and apparently convincing 
argument, it seems that every unbiassed person can- 
not fail to give it a trial, as many already have done, 
and are doing. The change in the minds of the 
people on the subject for the last few years is very 
great indeed. Twelve years ago, or when I first came 
to Philadelphia, there were only one or two in this 
great city using it, and that on a limited scale. Now 
there are more than twenty different ones, besides 
medical men (I know not how many) that arc using it 
— I wish I could say scientifically, but I cannot say that 
in truth. Hence the reasons for my writing what I 
have to educate the public mind to look candidly 
into this matter, and, from a conviction of right and 
duty, to think as well as act for themselves, and not 
from what they have heard Mr. or Mrs. A B say that 
C, D, or E had told them, or, what is quite as com- 
27 



3 1 4 ELECTRICITY AS A CURA TIVE A GENT. 

mon, what their family physician, who could tell them 
many truthful things about medicine, but not about 
the use of electricity in their case, because, as I stated 
before, of ignorance on the subject themselves. And 
when the blind undertake to lead the blind, both, of 
course, must fall into the ditch. I am friendly not 
only, but on the best of terms, with quite a number 
of medical men of high standing, and no reason why 
I should not be with all, and would, were it not that 
mankind are so supremely selfish. Some, however, 
of the more liberal and honest ones have given me a 
key that unlocks some of the serious objections to 
their adopting the treatment, and using it as a specific 
in out-door practice. 

FORMIDABLE OBJECTIONS IN THE WAY. 

First and foremost of all, stands the matter of criti- 
cism from the brotherhood, and persistence would be 
expulsion, of course, from the ring or circle. There 
are a few, however, who, from unavoidable circum- 
stances, have been obliged to look the matter squarely 
in the face, and I know now of what I affirm — it is my 
own experience, where I have come unavoidably in 
contact in the same house, and in several instances 
in treating the same patient, with these very physi- 
cians of both schools, and where they have been 
obliged to see the triumph of electrical over medical 
treatment, and been forced to acknowledge its suprem- 
acy or advantages over medicine. Some such, I say, 
have frankly acknowledged that, although my treat- 
ment with electricity alone seemed to be adapted to 
acute conditions, they could not after all adopt it, as it 



COMMON ELE CTRICITY. 3 1 5 

took too much of their time, and too much labor was 
required in its appHcation ; — in other words, there is 
not, as they supposed, so much money secured in a 
given time, seeing that three times as many calls, or 
twice that number, can be made in the same time 
when only a prescription is to be given. Then, again, 
the patient will be cured much sooner with electricity 
than with medicine, and, of course, not as profitable 
in that particular. But such reasoning is all bosh 
and folly, if I may indulge in such a homely expres- 
sion, and I have only used it to bring to view a 
few plain, simple facts, or foolish surmisings, that lie 
below the surface of medical practice. Such reason- 
ings, however, are neither honest nor truthful, and 
will not bear thorough investigation. 

DUTY BEFORE CIRCUMSTANCES. 

In the first place, then, every professional man, and 
more particularly the medical man, is bound to yield 
all prejudices to honest convictions of duty. If more 
lives can be saved, and more misery avoided, by one 
course of procedure than by another, that course ought 
to be adopted, by all means, or at all hazards, regard- 
less of any and all circumstances. Taking labor, or 
money to be acquired, into account, life and comfort 
ought not to be sacrificed for either. These conclu- 
sions, however, after all, are groundless, for every 
good enterprise or business, when properh^ under- 
taken and prosecuted, will always regulate itself 
More money can actually be made by the physician, 
and more saved by the patient, by electrical treat- 
ment, while, above all the rest, more lives saved, b\' 



3l6 ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT, 

one hundred per cent, from acute inflammatory attacks, 
than by any and all of the medical practices combined, 
when properly undertaken and prosecuted; but not 
by empirics, however, who have not first learned 
thoroughly the principle, and had some practice. 

I have used the term selfishness quite freely, and, as 
I believe, truthfully, and where it belongs ; still it would 
not be strange if, after what I have sstid with reference 
to the superiority or preferment, in every particular, 
of electrical over medical treatment for all acute 
diseases, and all inflammatory attacks, as well as for 
chronic cases, that I may be charged with acting 
from the same motive myself, viz., selfishness only. 
But this I unhesitatingly and emphatically deny. 
First, I would not, to increase my business, because 
I have broken down and been obliged to close my 
office three times, for months together, from over- 
work and close confinement, since I first came to this 
city. Secondly, I cannot be doing it to benefit any 
others using electricity, for I have hardly a speaking 
acquaintance with any other person or persons using it 
in our city — a mere sense of unavoidable duty from 
a strong conviction that the time has fully come for 
something to be done to enlighten the people and 
subdue blind prejudice. I have repeatedly had 
pressing solicitations from friends also who, from the 
knowledge they had of its superiority over medical 
treatment, by its application to themselves or their 
friends, to write and circulate a work for the enlight- 
enment of the people, and the medical profession also, 
on this new and all-important improvement in curing 
the sick. 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 3 1 7 

I might say many more things of importance 
to make my argument and reasonings more clear 
and understandable beyond what I have already 
written. But I am in haste to have it before the 
people, together with this work of Professor Brev/ster, 
which is very fine, and which precedes what I have 
written. And as he knew and wrote nothing on the 
subject of using the principle which he labored very 
hard to bring out, and which indeed is a labored and 
masterly production, though only theoretical and not 
practical as far as relates to the benefit of mankind 
in the treatment and cure of disease, I thought it not 
only proper, but absolutely necessary, to have the 
one accompany the other. In conclusion, then, of the 
first edition of this work, I have but one important 
thing to add, and that is a word of caution. And I 
really hope my motives may not be impugned in this 
particular either ; but if so, I must discharge the duty. 

A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION TO ALL. 

Candid reasoning men, and women too, after 
carefully reading this work, will doubtless decide 
that as for them they will give the new treatment a 
trial. And as I have not asked any individual to 
come to me for treatment in all I have said or may 
say, yet I would come short of what I desired in 
the outset, if I should fail to administer at least 
one small dose of caution to any and all who are 
about to give it a trial. It is said of electricity 
that it is so simple that any one can apply it — 
it does not require much stud}-, etc. I do not 
deny that a person who has any common share oi 
27* 



3 1 8 ELECTRICITY AS A CUR A TIVE A GENT. 

mechanical genius about him may learn in a short 
time to set up a battery and apply the current to the 
body, and, for some conditions not intricate, produce 
good results. I have known of many such instances, 
and that was my own experience in the outset of my 
career as an electrician, and in a few weeks, or months 
at most, I thought I knew fully all there was to learn 
about it. I truly had made some very interesting 
cures, even those that medicine had failed to cure. 
But experience ere long taught me that I had only 
learned the initiatory steps, by finding out contrary 
results from those anticipated, and which were only 
discovered and remedied by experience with deep and 
close study. 

Of course, I had no books or instructor to go to, 
as there were no books then, nor are there any now, 
published on the subject of proper treatment. There 
are indeed many small works, put out by machine- 
makers and venders in order to enable them to sell 
their machines more readily, yet I have seen none but 
what, even with charity, I can only call blind leaders 
of the blind, because they contain, as far as I have 
examined them carefully, more error than truth. And 
a great evil is oftentimes avoided, or a great good 
achieved, by only understanding so as to notice the 
small changes for good or evil which are often entirely 
overlooked, except by those of great experience. 

To expect, therefore, from electricity what I have 
assumed, you must apply to no empiric for treatment 
who has not had much experience and does not 
understand his business, whether he be an M. D. or 
not. To be sure, yours may not be an intricate case, 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 319 

that will not require much investigation — a plain case 
and apparently easily treated ; but you do not know 
that of yourself. It may even be a very intricate case, 
indeed. I say then, do not even apply to a regular 
medical man as such, unless you are satisfied that 
he has studied the principles of electrical science 
thoroughly, as he probably has that of medicine, and 
has had some time to put what he has learned into 
practice, as very few medical men from any of the 
schools have done ; for they thus far have preferred 
using the remedies with which they are most ac- 
quainted, and, as before stated, which require the least 
time and labor in their use. When your family 
physician says to you (as many have done to those 
who have desired the use of electricity) that, if you 
really want electricity, he can give it to you, or he 
will bring his battery and let you apply it yourself, 
as you can do it just as well, and no harm done and 
no cost either, just mark him as an empiric or igno- 
ramus in that particular, and knows not what he 
•is doing, or he would not do it; for he might as 
well leave his medicine-case with you, and tell you 
to help yourself — take what you please, as much 
and as often as you think best; or send you to the 
drug-store, and tell you to help yourself to the first 
bottles you find. 

But in either case he would be far from doing it, 
because medicine is a subject of study and more or 
less experience with him. He knows too well what 
serious consequences have resulted from its injudicious 
use. Just so in many cases it has been, and would 
be again, with electricity improperly administered; 



3 20 ELECTRICITY AS A CUR A TIVE A GENT. 

whereas, v/hen properly used, it is not only perfectly 
safe, even to the infant or ver}^ sensitive person, but 
it is without the least shock or pain, and to most 
persons pleasant and soothing. The greatest and 
most common evil, resulting from a wrong or im- 
proper use of electricity, is the failure of a healthy 
change or a final cure, and the consequent disappoint- 
ment both to the patient and friends. If medicine has 
failed ten thousand times where it has been used, it 
makes no difference — it will be tried over and over 
again ; but if electricit}' is resorted to once and failed, 
it is laid aside as good for nothing. And these fail- 
ures will occur even with electricity, if not scientifically 
and judiciously applied. For instance, a few years 
ago a prominent physician, who was very friendly to 
me and my practice, said, one day in our conversa- 
tion, that he thought very favorably indeed of my 
system of practice, and that he had used electricity in 
many instances for two years or more, but added, it 
is not reliable — I get good results sometimes ; at 
others, and upon similar cases, I do not ; and I have 
thought or feared that it might have been injurious. 
Said I to him, " Sir, may I plainly tell you the rea- 
son ? " '' Yes," he replied. '' Well, sir," said I, " you 
have undertaken to use tools you know little or 
nothing about. You have doubtless used the positive 
pole where the negative was needed, and vice versa!' 

He then and there acknowledged frankly that he 
did not know one from the other, or that there was 
any difference in that respect, when the difference is 
as great as two opposites can possibly be — one pro- 
ducing heat and the other cold ; one contracts, while 



COMMON ELECTRICITY. 321 

the other expands, when applied to the same organ, 
nerve, or muscle ; one pole, at certain times, would 
sicken and cause a vomit, while the other would, in 
certain conditions of the stomach, act as a cathartic. 
Hence, while the right one, in the right place, would 
readily cure perhaps in one application, the other, 
and wrong one, might readily increase the pain or 
difficulty, whatever it may be. 

Finally, I submit what I have written on this part 
of my subject to the candid and careful perusal of all 
who may think proper to give it their attention, and 
hold myself ready to hear any reasonable criticism, 
as well as answer all rational objections, from either 
friends or foes. 

V 



CHAPTER II. 

INSTRUCTION. 

I HAVE finally decided, and now proceed to write 
and put in print, as an appendix to the foregoing 
volume, what varied circumstances have kept me from 
doing for the last twelve years, or ever since I com- 
menced treating diseases with and lecturing upon 
electricity in Philadelphia, viz., a synopsis of my 
discoveries and experience of the manner in which I 
treat all common phases of disease, and which I have 
been compelled, as it were, to do for several impor- 
tant reasons. 

First, because I have, in many cases, promised 
this work at some future time to those of my students 
who have taken a course of instruction, and gone 
out to different places to work, to refer to whenever 
any intricate case might come up for treatment. 

The above promise was made in good faith, to be 
fulfilled in due time. One very prominent reason, 
however, for delay v/as that the people were not 
ready, or that the time had not really come for the 
people generally to be the most benefited by it ; and 
even now I have only been convinced of the duty for 
so doing since I commenced and almost completed 
what I have written with regard to the general sub- 
ject of electricity as a curative agent, and, in my 

322 



INS TR UCTION. 323 

estimation, not only the best, but in fact the only- 
curative, whether from medicine as an agent, the 
atmosphere, or a well-regulated battery, which is by 
far the best when understood and properly applied. 
Many pamphlets or small volumes have been com- 
piled by machine-makers and venders, and sent out 
with the machines in order to introduce them among 
the people, which, as I believe, have had their day, 
or sufficient time to convince the people that there 
was some virtue in electricity, but that there was, 
after all, something lacking somehow or somewhere, 
and that eventually there would be something better 
and beyond what had yet been discovered, and would 
be brought out by those who have had opportunities 
of thorough practical experience. This is merely a 
plain matter of fact to all in any legitimate branch of 
business or science, and particularly of any new and 
untried thing. This fact, with regard to electricity as 
a general curative, however, has pushed its way for- 
ward, so that many obstacles are being removed. 

Another thing of no small importance, and in favor 
of putting before the public a short treatise on treat- 
ment, is that I can do it much easier, as well as 
cheaper, for much I would then have to say as pre- 
liminary is already said in the preceding pages, and 
will abridge very much what it would be absolutely 
necessary to state on the general subject of electricity, 
and of disease as connected with it, either to create 
life or to produce death. 

One thing more of considerable importance I will 
add as an inducement to my doing this \\o\\\ viz.. to 
avoid being charged — harshly, perhaps, by some 



324 INSTRUCTION. 

parties — for finding so much fault not only with 
medical men, but with all employers who are using 
electricity not according to my ideas of science and 
right. I hope, now, in this to be understood that 
what I am about to lay before the public is mainly 
for the good of the people — good and even lucrative 
to those who will study and judiciously administer it 
according to proper rules, and particularly good to 
all the diseased who may be so fortunate as to have 
it thus administered to them. 

I shall endeavor to show, in as plain and simple a 
manner as possible, the better way, by far, of curing 
disease, not by an M. D. particularly, but by an E. D. 
— one who is well educated, whether man or woman, 
and desirous of gQttmg good by doing good. 

That is, I mean to say that it is not necessary for a 
person to be an M. D., or have that title, in order to 
be a good electropathist, while, at the same time, I 
would emphatically state that no one can be a suc- 
cessful electropathist unless he understands the struc- 
ture of the human system, which he may readily 
acquire by study. But a long course of lectures on 
medicines is of no use whatever, but rather injurious 
to make an efficient electrician. And why ? Because 
the starting-point to cure by medicines and by elec- 
tricity is not the same by any means. To treat with 
medicines, you can only arrive at symptoms in your 
diagnosis. After questioning the patient as closely as 
possible, you charge your gun and fire, then wait to 
see whether you have hit the mark; if not, guess 
again, and make a similar trial. By a diagnosis with 
electricity, we arrive at facts at once, and need not 



INS TR UC TION. 325 

make a mistake. True, mistakes are made, I hear, 
by professed electricians ; but they who make them 
are only charlatans. They have not learned their 
trade well, or if they have, they have not had the 
practice to make them proficient, and the cause suffers, 
as every new and good cause does, by unskilful pre- 
tenders. 

Let me add that any careful, judicious person, male 
or female, with an ordinary education, who thoroughly 
and understandingly reads this whole work, may safely 
use it upon himself or herself to great advantage, and, 
with a' careful study of common (Cutter's) physiology 
(if not well studied before), would be better prepared 
to treat all diseases, as they are found among man- 
kind, with more certainty of success, than any medical 
physician is or can be with medicines, though he may 
have had the experience of a lifetime. 

OTHER MODES WITHOUT THE USE OF THE BATTERY. 

Before commencing to give the first chapter of in- 
struction on the proper use of the battery, I am 
reminded that the reader will be much advantaged 
by my describing in brief other modes and ways by 
which people are benefited and cured with electricity 
without the use of the battery, and that, too, when 
they do not know it, and the credit is ascribed to 
some other agent, while electricity receives none of 
the credit. Indeed, I should do great injustice to my 
subject, or the grand phenomena of electrical action 
in general, if I did not define its use as a cure in 
more forms and ways than as administered from a 
well-regulated battery ; for it will be remembered 
28 



326 INSTRUCTION. 

by all who have carefully read and understood what 
has been stated, that electricity is really and truly 
omnipresent, or universally distributed throughout 
nature, or wherever our common atmosphere can 
possibly penetrate. It is found in all liquids and 
solids ; consequently, whenever we are situated so as 
to come in contact with it, we cannot help but be 
benefited in degree according to kind, manner, or 
quantity taken into the system. 

And as I have thoroughly tried its use and adapta- 
tion as a cure in removing disease, in all its varied 
forms, from the system before I adopted my present 
plan as being the best, I feel myself fully competent 
to give what every rational, unbiassed person will call 
good and satisfactory reasons for so doing. Being 
at liberty, then, to change or adopt other systems of 
using electricity, or connect their use with my present 
practice, it cannot be from wholly a selfish motive, 
or aside from the general good of mankind, that I am 
about to show how different individuals are often 
using and being cured by electricity when they were 
not aware of it. 

THE MOVEMENT CURE MINERAL WATERS. 

My mind was called to the importance of making 
a note of this fact, a short time since, by reading an 
article in one of the morning papers in which the 
writer was extolling very highly the new movement 
cure, mentioning particularly its increasing popularity. 
This, as every scientific person must readily see, is 
nothing more than common electjdcity from friction. 
It is bringing into exercise the muscles that pass 



INSTRUCTION. 32/ 

across and through each other in various ways, and 
which are all brought into use by different motions, 
movements, and gesticulations, according as the patient 
has strength to make, or endure them from others. 
There is but one class of persons that would be bene- 
fited by this sort of electrical treatment, viz., those 
who are too rich or too poor, or unable to work 
from other causes, thus failing to bring the muscles 
and vital organs of the body into exercise. 

Hence the advantage of being able as well as will- 
ing to labor in-doors or out of doors, where there is 
plenty of fresh air, which is made up largely of elec- 
tricity; or if labor is to be performed wholly in-doors, 
then have as many doors and windows open as 
possible. 

I suppose many who have been benefited by the 
movement cure have hardly an idea that they are 
cured by the warmth or vitality caused by the friction 
of the muscles, or from contact with the hands of the 
physician in rubbing the patient, which is only a mild 
current of electricity, nothing more. 

Another mode of receiving it is from the bath — 
whether Turkish, Russian, or the common bath, it 
makes no difference. Water is always surcharged 
with electricity, and contains that agent in proportion 
to the quantity of mineral substances it may contain. 
Consequently those who use water upon the surface 
of the body, followed by frictional rubbing, receive, 
in part, the advantage of the movement cure in con- 
nection with the electricity absorbed from the contact 
with the water. 

I will not take more time in explaining these different 



328 INSTRUCTION. 

modes of supplying the system with this vital force, but 
conclude by stating one more feature in the use of water 
alone as an element by which an excellent electrical 
effect is produced on the system, and important cures 
are made by electricity as the agent. 

Water is always surcharged with electricity, but, 
like other substances, is not all alike in its composition, 
and of course possesses electricity in different degrees. 
Some may possess no mineral properties, compara- 
tively, being purely soft, while others are highly 
impregnated with mineral substances. These min- 
erals, by their inductive capacity, render the water 
capable of retaining a large amount of electricity. 
Iron, for instance, is very susceptible to electrical 
influence, so that water containing much iron in its 
composition, when drank, or applied outwardly to the 
body, imparts much electricity or vitality. Water im- 
pregnated with salt always produces an exhilarating 
effect, or adds vitality to the system by increasing its 
natural electrical force. 

Having briefly noticed the beneficial results of elec- 
tricity by friction produced in the movement cure, 
which has already obtained some celebrity in the city 
of Ne^ York and elsewhere, and also from the various 
kinds of mineral waters, I shall only notice, in pass- 
ing, the effect produced by an atmosphere surcharged 
by electricity. 

ATMOSPHERE, EARTH-CURE, SUN-CURE, ETC. 

Our friends are benefited by inhaling the salt air 
at the seashore, without going into the water at all ; 
it is because of the large amount of electricity which, 



INSTRUCTION. 329 

by inhalation, is retained in the system. Some go to 
the mountain-tops of our own or the old country, where 
the air is not only dry, but invigorating, as it is 
termed, merely because in these localities Jt contains 
perhaps double the amount of this vitalizing force, 
electricity, that it does here, and of course double the 
amount of vigor is imparted to the system in a given 
time. 

There are still other ways of securing the advantages 
of this wonderful vitalizing agent, electricity : — one, 
called terrapathy, or earth-cuvQ, by applying clay or 
earth to the body ; another, the suu-cmyq, by exposing 
the patient to the rays of the sun, in some peculiar 
manner. This, I am informed, has been practised to 
some extent, with good results, in France. 

Those of you, my readers, who have followed my 
reasonings carefully, will see that in all these various 
ways only one result is at last obtained, and that is 
the vitalizing force, which is nothing more nor less 
than common electricity. What, then, permit me to 
ask, is the finale, the ultimatum, and unavoidable con- 
clusion of the whole matter, which must be proven 
clearly to the satisfaction of all candid reasoners, that 
the thing sought through any and all of these various 
channels, and obtained in a greater or less degree, is 
the vitalizing force that tends to quicken and invig- 
orate both mind and body ? That vitalizing force is this 
unseen, mysterious, wonder-working agent, electricity. 

The next and last thing, and one of greatest impor- 
tance under this head, is to know which is the easiest, 
cheapest, and best way of obtaining it. With the 
advantages of many years of careful observation and 
28^- 



330 INSTRUCTION. 

experience, I unhesitatingly reply, through and with 
a well regulated battery, administered by an expe- 
rienced operator, and who is well acquainted with the 
physiological structure of the human system. 

WHAT THEN IS DISEASE? 

Disease, I here repeat, is a unit, and the system out 
of balance electrically, or the electrical, which is the 
vital force, more or less deranged. This one disease 
is divided into two grand parts or divisions — the one 
where there is too much electricity, and inflamma- 
tory ; the other where there is too little, and paralytic, 
or below a par value in proportion as the other is plus 
or 'above. In order to rightly understand what I am 
now about to say with regard to the proper treatment 
of disease, you must first have not only carefully read, 
but re-read and studied thoroughly what I have al- 
ready written in this work on the subject of the circu- 
lation of the blood, as well as about disease in general 
— my opinions differing very materially from other 
medical men, or what is written in the books upon 
these two particular topics, arrived at or discovered 
only by the careful study and application of electrical 
law and its adaptation to the production of animal life 
in the economy of nature. And further, that this un- 
measured and mysterious force is not only capable of 
producing life through divine agency as supreme, but 
by only a small change in circumstances, hereafter to 
be explained, it as readily produces death and decay. 
This change, or these changes, are produced by only 
a slight change of the plus or positive with the minus 
or negative currents of electricity in the system. I 



INS TR UCTION. 3 3 1 

remark, therefore, that the plus or positive and the 
minus or negative battery currents are exactly adap- 
ted to the positive and negative conditions of the 
human body, or the animal economy, in producing 
these desirable and very necessary changes. My 
whole experience on this point for sixteen years, is 
one continued chain of facts and certainties, which, 
when learned and understood thoroughly, are not 
only grand to contemplate, but sure and invariable 
in their results when properly carried out — not a 
single link in the whole chain broken or misplaced. 
The operator has only to carefully diagnose the 
case or subject he is about to undertake to cure. 
First, then, I emphatically state, be sure what he is 
about to do or desires to accomplish, and the work is 
already half done; in other words, do just as any 
good mechanic would do with an important job of 
work he is about to perform — first look at and 
through it, or until he is satisfied he knows what is 
needed, and how he must commence in order to ac- 
complish his desires fully, and the work is already 
half done, and he will pursue his plans understand- 
ingly, expecting, after a certain amount of labor is 
performed, and the expenditure of a certain sum of 
money, to accomplish the desired result. Much ex- 
perience, however, in either case is of very great 
advantage. When I first commenced treating with 
electricity indiscriminate cases as they came to my 
office, I had no instructor nor instruction books to 
refer to that were of any great value, and only about 
six months of private practice on myself and faniil}-, 
together with a few of my immediate friends and 



332 INSTRUCTION. 

neighbors, and, of course, had to feel my way along 
as best I could, like a man walking blindfold or in the 
darkness of midnight. I treated many of my first 
patients gratis, in order to get them to try it at all. 
I first learned that by carefully examining with elec- 
trical currents I could discover that there was some- 
thing wrong or different from healthy persons. This 
I learned in part, however, in first practicing on my 
own person for some weeks previous to using it on 
any one else, as I might have stated in its proper 
place that it was the loss of my own health that led 
me first to the discovery of its use. I had a partial 
sunstroke that laid me aside, which finally, after some 
months of confinement, and which medicine and 
water both failed to cure, culminated into^n extreme 
case of dyspepsia and nervousness, and brought me 
to the borders of the grave ; and when my friends 
and neighbors were daily looking for my departure, 
the Lord from heaven seemingly said to me to try 
electricity, and directed me just how to begin its use. 
As soon as I got strong enough to get about with 
some degree of independence, and the people began 
to find out what had been the agent in doing such 
a great work, I had many callers as inquirers con- 
cerning this new and mysterious agent, and how the 
matter was accomplished. 

But to pass by this apparent digression, I opened 
my office to treat all cases and conditions of disease, 
as my confidence then was fully established that it 
was superior to medicines of any kind, and even 
superior to water, which I had used as a cure for 
fifteen years or more with great success, previous to 



INSTRUCTION. 333 

my sickness, and which I considered far better than 
medicines, but which had signally failed in this in- 
stance. In every instance I examined carefully with 
the electric currents in order to discover what the con- 
dition was, as well as to know what was necessary to 
be done, together with asking direct questions of the 
patients as to how they were made to feel while under 
the treatment, and afterwards taking critical notes of 
all facts of importance to be remembered. By experi- 
ence, however, this has long ago become unnecessary. 
In the second place, then, I remark, we want to 
pattern after a scientific mechanic in another sense, 
viz., to be sure always to get the best of tools if you 
expect to do a good job ; and in the third place, be 
sure you not only learn well how to use them, but to 
keep them in good working order, and always ready 
for use when needed. More about the tools, however, 
and what kinds are preferable, by and by. Com- 
mence, I repeat, when all other things and appendages 
are well understood, by first carefully examining your 
patient with the negative pole of your battery, and 
after you are fully satisfied that you know ivJiat the 
trouble is and where located, commence the treatment 
similia siinilibiis airantcr, that is, by the application of 
similars, viz., put one pole of the battery, wrapped in a 
wet sponge, under the feet, or let your patient sit upon 
it, as is most convenient, the latter being the better 
way generally, and then apply the other just whore 
the disease seems to be most apparent — the plus or 
positive where, by your careful diagnosis, \'ou find it 
to be plus or inflammatory, and the minus or ncgati\'0 
pole where you find it negative, inscnsiti\'e to a cer- 
tain degree, or below a natural or healthy state. 



334 INSTRUCTION. 

What, then, is to be understood, more particularly, 
by these terms of phis and minus f Why the plus 
means more than a proper, healthy condition, where 
there is already too much heat or electricity above a 
par value, and inflammatory ; while the minus is 
directly the opposite state, with a lack of electricity 
or vitality ; or, to be still more explicit, and make this 
very important point too simple to be misunderstood, 
I repeat, in other words, or terms, the same idea — that 
the nerves, upon which, or through which rather, no 
blood, nothing but electricity passes, when in a 
plus or positive state, are surcharged or overcharged 
with an undue proportion of electricity, creating, of 
course, great heat, while the minus is in directly the 
opposite state, and rendered diseased from a lack of 
the proper amount of heat or electricity to give natu- 
ral warmth and sensibility to that particular organ or 
part of the system. It is certainly, then, very plain, 
as well as philosophical, in order to supply this lack, 
to apply the negative or minus pole (a similar, as you 
see) direct to the part, or place, just long enough, as 
well as often enough, to supply the deficiency, as 
positives always run to negatives, no matter how 
much obstructed or how circuitous the route, or how 
distant — even across the Atlantic and under the bed 
of the ocean, if the conductor is a perfect one. 

A GREAT ERROR. 

^ Here, however, for the enlightenment of the student 
or reader, I am constrained to stop to notice one of 
the greatest errors imaginable — an error propagated, 
and spread broadcast too, by a professed electrician 



INSTRUCTION. 335 

of some note — one who styles himself not only pro- 
fessor, as that is but a common title and used by 
carpet-shakers, but an M. D., and has published a 
work on electrical treatment. The book, I am in- 
formed, has quite a wide circulation, and has been 
purchased quite extensively by beginners in the use 
of electricity, who bought their instruction for ten 
dollars each. The error consists in the fact, as this 
professor teaches, that the positive does not go entirely 
to the negative, or rather, that they meet each other 
on the way is what is meant to be understood ; or, 
in other words still, that if there be a part in or out- 
side of the body, either in a positive or negative state, 
that you wish to influence or rightly treat, you must 
shorten or lengthen one of the conducting cords, as 
the case may be, in order to do it. I knew this same 
error to have been embraced and taught some dozen 
years ago or more, by a certain electrician, but I had 
supposed it to have exploded long ago, or until, per- 
haps five years since, a particular friend of mine, whom 
I had not seen for a year or more, and while at the 
West had been paying some attention to the study and 
use of electricity, came to me and stated that a great 
discovery had been made in the application of elec- 
tricity, which was considered of very great value, and 
which he was willing to communicate to me gratis 
as an electrician. I listened, of course, attentively to 
the matter, and found it to be nothing more than that 
very old error revived again, carried out West, and 
palmed off upon him for money as a very great secret. 
I asked him where he got it, as it was second-hand ; 
he replied from the professor aforesaid — the same 



336 INSTRUCTION. 

which I read afterwards in the book referred to above. 
I frankly told him it was an old error, laid aside by 
me years ago, and in a few words explained to him 
the impossibility of such a thing being true, which he 
readily saw. 

If it were true, as you will see at a glance, our 
messages would only go half or part way across the 
ocean, as the case may be, which would be entirely 
contrary to all experience in telegraphy ; and what is 
true and proven in electrical law in one sense is true 
of all, for it is a natural law, or a law from God him- 
self, and therefore cannot change. In the sixteen 
years or more of my careful experience, in ten times 
ten thousand ways, I have yet to find the first change 
or variation in this grand fundamental law, about 
which I shall now say something more definitely, to 
wit : the first law of electricity is for it to select the 
best conductor, no matter how circuitous or lengthy 
the course. For instance, it will go round the entire 
globe on a copper wire, or any good conductor, before 
it would skip an inch through the atmosphere, merely 
as a conductor, to save distance to its destination. 

Its next law is to run in a direct line, and take the 
shortest course when the conductors are equally 
good. Consequently, the human body being a very 
good conductor, because of there being so much 
moisture in its composition, as well as being so com- 
pact withal, an experienced electrician can direct 
the current upon and through any internal part he 
may choose, though not larger than a dime ; so that 
by placing the negative pole or conductor on any 
organ of the body, knowing that positives always 



INSTRUCTION. 337 

seek or go directly, as well as entirely, to the 
negative, and not part way, as some have very erro- 
neously taught, you have only to place the positive 
on the opposite side to reach that identical spot, and it 
will affect any organ or part directly in line between 
the two poles. Again, with regard to these grand 
and unchangeable laws, my system of treatment is 
from direct polarity — that is, if I wish, in a special 
manner, to benefit any particular organ of the body, 
I have only to place one pole upon it, or as near it as 
possible, and the other upon the vertebrae of the spine, 
whence the nerve that leads to that organ emanates, 
and in that manner, or by thus first polarizing, you 
can effect more in one treatment than may be effected 
in half a dozen ordinary Jiap-liazard treatments, or 
such as are given by many calling themselves electri- 
cians, or even as many medical men have done and 
are now doing, viz., taking their battery to the sick- 
room and leaving it with their patients, and telling 
them to use it themselves. Oh, horrible ! Much or 
little, just as they choose or feel ! What folly; yes, 
madness I Almost every day or week cases of this 
kind come to my ears. And can you blame me for 
strongly rebuking such a practice ? Oh, that there 
were a law in this direction, also, to protect the inno- 
cent, who have placed themselves, as they suppose, 
in the hands of those that understand this principle 
as they do about their medicines. 

INDUCTIVE CURRENT. 

The next very important matter to be remembered 
is the use of a very small inductive current. IMuch is 

2Q W 



3 3 8 IJVS TR UCTION. 

saved in strength and unnecessary exhaustion to the 
patient when this principle is strictly observed. And 
what I mean by the induced current is the increase 
of sensation by a large coil of wire, or the current 
broken by interchanging often the large and small 
wires in a small coil, which makes always a very 
harsh current. 

THE RIGHT WAY OF APPLYING THE CURRENTS. 

Again, as the natural laws that govern electricity 
never change, so the right way of applying the cur- 
rents to cure disease never change — always remem- 
bering that you must apply similars ; that is, to a 
plus or inflammatory condition apply the plus or 
positive pole, or, in other words, the repelling force 
or current. And why ? Because it has already too 
much electricity there, and disease has begun because 
of it, and now the right and only way to get rid of it, 
as an enemy doing already its diabolical work, is to 
treat it as an enemy by a sufficient positive force that 
will repel or dislodge it and cause it to retreat. 

On the other hand, if the part or organ be minus 
and diseased, because of a lack of this vital force — 
electricity — and of course weak and of a chronic 
nature, it needs to be nourished and strengthened 
with an addition of electricity to the part. To do 
this, apply similars again, viz., place the negative pole 
there, and as the positive always goes to the negative, 
as before stated, you get the desired result. And by 
repeating the same at intervals from time to time, 
you restore the part to an equilibrium, which is health. 

By fully understanding and properly applying and 



INSTRUCTION. 339 

carrying out these few plain and simple rules, accord- 
ing to this grand electrical law of nature, you will 
find, after you have had some experience, no difficulty 
in giving good and careful treatments — those that 
will cure any and all curable diseases, most of which 
have been found incurable by medicines, and frequent 
repetitions of such applications only are necessary to 
make the operator or physician not only familiar with, 
but successful in curing, as he never before found him- 
self to be with the use of medicines. 

Those general rules I have already given for treat- 
ing are amply sufficient for all diseases, either acute 
or chronic, if carefully observed and properly carried 
out. But in order to assist the new operator or begin- 
ner in his work, and help him or her to get started 
rightly, and with less danger to the patient as well as 
embarrassment on his or her part, besides making 
this work a text-book to refer to when necessary, I 
will here introduce a few 

FORMS OR EXAMPLES FOR TREATMENT 

Which I, in my beginnings, and with much patience, 
was obliged to work out without any text-book or 
guide whatever, except the use of the sponge instead 
of the bare pole or metal button, then in common 
use, and as used still by some operators. 

The first case, then, we here introduce, is a person 
attacked with pleurisy, which of course is a plus or 
positive state or condition, with too much electricity 
or heat, and in a feverish state, and to be materially 
changed or mitigated in order to give relief. The 
patient has great pain in the left side, and oftentimes 



340 INSTRUCTION. 

SO severe as to materially affect the breathing. This 
can be cured with only a few proper applications — 
sometimes with one, if taken when the pain first becomes 
severe ; first, by putting the negative pole at the coc- 
cyx or under the feet, and applying the positive pole, 
wrapped in a wet sponge, directly on and around the 
part, for five or ten minutes, when the pain is most 
severe, and the same treatment in an hour afterwards, 
if the first did not give relief; and so repeat until 
relief is obtained, which is never beyond three appli- 
cations — and the same applications precisely for colic 
pains, or pains any or everywhere in or upon the body. 
It is also just as efficacious for burns, applied in the 
same manner. 

Then, on the other hand, when any part or organ, 
or even the whole body, is found, by a very careful 
examination, to be in the opposite state, and negative, 
or below the par value — that is, with less sensation than 
a healthy state — it needs the negative pole applied, 
in order to supply the lack of electricity which it 
needs to bring it up to health and natural vigor. 

This last case is the general condition of all persons 
afflicted with any chronic disease, and a few of the 
first treatments in such cases must always be given in 
a similar manner as last described, using the negative 
pole all over the body, and particularly on those parts 
that are slow to feel or yield to an ordinary current, 
in order to vitalize or bring them into natural or even 
anything like healthy action or sensation. By thus 
doing you open the capillaries, and bring or restore 
lost action through them to the surface of the body. 

After this has been done, to go on and complete 



INSTRUCTION. 34^ 

the cure, you must reverse the poles, and use the 
positive pole instead of the negative over the body, 
and your experience must be your guide, as in all 
other branches of business or modes of treatment. 
And here comes in again the danger of any or all 
empiricism, or those using it at all without first having 
had a proper course of instruction from one who has 
had already a large amount of experience in treating. 
Hence, I say, use great care and judgment, both 
before and after you get this experience for yourself, 
and always use similars^ observing when these changes 
take place in your patient as they progress with their 
cure — that is, using the positive when it is indicated 
by a great sensitiveness, and the negative when it is 
indicated by the opposite state of insensibility to an 
ordinary current, and never deviating in the least from 
this unchangeable and fundamental law of polarity or 
natural equilibrium. 

TREATMENT OF FEVERS. 

Before leaving this part of my subject, however, I 
must drop a few hints that will be absolutely neces- 
sary with regard to the treatment of fevers, so called, 
although very improperly. Fever of any kind is not 
a disease — it is only a symptom of something beyond 
which produces it. A person no more dies from fever 
of any kind, even, than another does from pain. And 
it would be just as correct to say that one person died 
from pain, as a disease, as to say that another died of 
fever as a disease. 

But we have to use language many times according 
to custom, in order to be rightly understood, be it 
29* 



342 INSTRUCTION. 

ever so erroneously or ungrammatically applied. 
There is a deep-seated inflammation always, some- 
where, when fever is indicated upon the surface, just 
as you will always reduce fire in a stove when you 
find the surface warming up after it was once cold, 
and the heat upon the surface in each case will be in 
exact proportion to the amount of heat found to be 
generated inside. Fever, therefore, is an effect, and 
not a cause. It is the result of congestion and inflam- 
mation, and the different names given to fever arises 
from the severity, or rather the amount of congestion, 
found to be upon the part producing a heat upon the 
surface from the hurried circulation, which is called 
fever, and the name of bilious, typhoid, or typhus are 
given to it, according to its tv^pe or malignity. The 
patient, in this condition, is like the furnace with fire 
kindled within it. This internal fire is consuming, 
with great rapidity, the entire substance of the body ; 
the capillaries on the surface, which are the tiny 
chimneys or outlets through the surface of the system, 
and which give it vitality when open and healthy, are 
now all closed up, and the surface is dry and glassy, 
while the pulse, the thermometer to the circulation, 
indicates the rapid flow of the blood, which has risen 
from sixt}^ or seventy to one hundred and twenty^ or 
one hundred and forty, and the patient is wasting 
away, or burning up, as it truly may be termed, in a 
proportionate ratio. Now the man of medicine knows 
that unless he succeeds in opening those capillaries, 
and getting up profuse perspiration (which he seldom 
does with medicine), his patient must run his chance 
for life. But, in our proper electrical treatment, we 



INSTRUCTION. 343 

do not say or even think so, for we can stop its 
rage right here and now, or at any stage we find it, 
by treating as aforesaid {shnilia similibiis ciiranter). 
First, then, remember I have said that the fire, the 
inflammation, the plus or positive condition, is internal 
upon either the lungs, if pneumonia or a lung fever, 
or upon the stomach and liver, if the more common 
symptoms of typhoid or typhus form are developed. 
The perfect simplicity of this system of treatment 
is such that a mistake need not, cannot even, be made 
by a proper scientific physician or operator. The in- 
ternal part or parts therefore being plus, the outside 
or surface is in the opposite state, or minus. The treat- 
ment is with the positive at the feet, or coccyx if as 
convenient, and the negative used all over the body, 
causing the current to pass both upward and inward 
withal from the positive pole to meet the negative 
upon the surface of the body, and against the ramifica- 
tion of the nerves (in which case I would here observe 
that the currents always run inward), and by thus 
doing, the capillaries upon the surface, which are all 
closed up and producing a dry, glassy skin, are forced 
open, and a moisture, or a profuse perspiration, is the 
invariable result. The internal fire or inflammation is 
thus removed, and the external heat or fever, as it is 
called, is no more. It departs like the gas-jet when the 
faucet that supports it is turned down. Now, please 
remember that this is not a conjecture, but the happy 
and unvarying experience of sixteen years of careful 
practice, without the loss of a single patient fioui the 
many I have thus treated. 



344 INSTRUCTION. 

TREATMENT OF CHILLS AND FEVER. 

There is one thought more I had better state in this 
connection, concerning the treatment of chills and 
fever, which is also treated according to the same law 
as all other diseases, yet there is a time more favora- 
ble than another in which to do it, viz., either an hour 
or so before the chill is expected, or after it is entirely 
off and the fever is fairly on, and in each case with 
the negatTve pole over the body as for other fevers. 



Another very important principle is the special 
benefits of electricity to contract or expand muscle 
or ligament in certain chronic cases, such as rheuma- 
tism, etc., as this disease, whether chronic or acute, is 
only a contraction of nerve, muscle, or ligament — the 
positive being the contracting while the negative is 
the expanding pole wherever applied. For instance, 
in the cure of rheumatism, you must first ascertain 
where it is, or on what particular ligament or muscle, 
as it is very often the result of an injury or sprain 
upon only one or two tendons at most (and this kind 
is always the most painful). You must run the current 
upward or against the ramification of the nerves, 
having the positive at the feet, in case the contraction 
is in the legs, and the negative on the spine in the 
lumbar region, or, as near as you can ascertain, at the 
root of the injured muscle or nerve where it connects 
with the spinal column. If in the fingers, wrists, or 
arms, the positive should be in the hands and the 
negative between and across the shoulders. Now, 



INSTRUCTION. 345 

if the student or learner has carefully followed my 
reasoning, which I have studied to make plain and 
simple, first by using plain language and common 
forms of speech, avoiding medical terms as much as 
possible, he cannot but see the philosophy in, and the 
correct theory of, my conclusions as to the manner 
of treatment, which I have proved a thousand times 
over in my practice, whereas only a short time ago 
a book was brought to me setting forth a system of 
electropathic practice for the cure of rheumatism by 
directly the opposite practice or treatment, which is 
a most egregious error indeed. I was induced, of 
course, from this fact to look over and througJi the 
book, and found many other palpable errors, among 
which was that almost unpardonable, silly one with 
regard to having the conductors of different lengths 
in order to get a negative or a positive effect at certain 
places. This is what I have mentioned once before, and 
refer to it here again in order to expose, if possible, 
all undercurrents and hidden or false conclusions, and 
thereby clear the track entirely of all errors and smoke, 
whether introduced by professors of great or small 
calibre, whether in the medical or electrical school 
— it makes no difference whatever to vie. My first 
and last object is tnitli, practical truth ; truth that has 
stood the test of years in the crucible of strong and 
unrelenting opposition ; truth, and nothing else, which 
I have achieved only by many )'ears of hard study 
and labor, and which have been years of the most 
satisfactory experience and close observation. 



34^ INSTRUCTION. 



CONTRACTILE AND EXPANSIVE PRINCIPLES. 

I have said nothing as yet about the great benefits 
resulting from the contractile and expansive principle 
of electricity, or rather the effect it produces upon 
nerve and muscle when properly administered. To 
make the fact more apparent and clear, I will cite two 
instances of opposite conditions, among many I might 
mention, as an evident proof of the benefits, and which 
were the results of my own experience. 

Two boys, each about ten years of age, were under 
my treatment some few years ago. The first a case 
whose mother, then living on West Logan Square, was 
under my treatment for other weaknesses, one morn- 
ing brought her only son with her, saying that he had 
been to several physicians, who had tried but done 
nothing for him. The trouble with him was a weak- 
ness in his knee- and ankle-joints, which seemed weak 
and loose. The physician had loaded him down with 
heavy shoes, part steel and iron, with steel straps each 
side of the leg, extending up to the body. In this way 
he could walk better, of course, but they were very 
heavy, often breaking and getting out of order, and 
the steel straps, she said, would sometimes wear out 
a new pair of pants in a week ; but, -with all of this 
harness, when it was off he was not a bit better for 
its use. I examined him carefully, and saw immedi- 
ately that the difficulty was the result of too rapid 
growth for the maturity. Both the knee- and ankle- 
joints were not firm in their place, and would, by a 
little side pressure, partially slip by each other. The 
muscle and ligaments wanted both vitalizing and con- 



i 



INSTRUCTION. 34/ 

tracting withal to produce the desired result. I com- 
menced the prpcess at once, and in a month, or about 
a dozen treatments, the thing was accomplished, and 
he never had any trouble afterwards, or use for the 
iron shoe or steel straps. 

The other was an opposite case or condition en- 
tirely. Both legs were badly contracted, and feet 
drawn up and inward, and had been so, only growing 
worse, for some years. He had taken a great deal of 
medicine, and besides all had been under electrical 
treatment a whole year previous to his being brought 
to me for treatment, and that even without being 
benefited — and some applications, he said, had been 
for an hour at a time. I told the father, under those 
discouraging circumstances, I wanted nothing to do 
with the case. He said he had no faith in anything 
but electricity, and was very anxious to have it tried 
by a different operator, hearing, as he had, that my 
system was new and different. I finally commenced 
the case, more to please the father than anything else, 
though he willingly paid my full charge for the treat- 
ment ; but my faith was mere nothing as to a cure. 
To my surprise, however, and the father's too, he soon 
began to show signs of improvement in his general 
health, and also in his limbs. After some ten or a 
dozen treatments, he could walk round the office by 
holding on to the wall and balancing himself a little. 
His father had to carry him in and out when lie first 
came, but soon he improved so that, with crutches to 
assist him a little, he could walk as fast as his father 
could in the street. 

In the first case mentioned I wanted to contract 



348 INSTRUCTION. 

ligament, of course, as you must plainly see. This 
was done by placing the negative pole at the feet and 
the positive on the spine, where the muscle or liga- 
ment needed contractmg, or tying up, as it may be 
termed, and where it must be done, if done at all, and 
where, by proper treatment, it was done effectually. 
The second case was of an opposite character entirely, 
and found to be so too from exact polarity, for 1 
found the Sartorius muscle particularly dormant and 
contracted, and had to give it special treatment in 
order to turn the foot out to its place, as well as to 
lengthen it sufficiently. Will the student or reader 
please carefully notice here the difference between 
right and wrong electrical treatment — a matter about 
which I have spoken so emphatically before — and be 
profited by it? For, as you see, this boy had been 
treated a whole year, by a professed electrician, two 
or three times each week, to no apparent advantage, 
as his father stated when he brought him to me, just 
because the doctor was an empiric, and, not under- 
standing his business, did not treat him according to 
proper electrical laws. 

STOPPING OF BLOOD. 

I will also just mention the great advantage of this 
contractile principle of electricity for wounds and 
bruises of any kind, together with the stoppage of 
hemorrhages internally and externally, when all other 
remedies had failed ; also the stopping of flooding 
after confinement, or uterine hemorrhages of ladies 
from any cause whatever, when properly applied, has 
been oftentimes truly surprising. 



INSTRUCTION. 349 

It has also been used with astonishing results in 
cases of protracted labor, when all pains or natural 
labor had ceased — even ergot having been used with- 
out any progress, and nothing left but the common 
mechanical processes to resort to as inevitable, when, 
by a gentle application of positive electricity, strong 
contractions of the womb were produced, and a safe, 
healthy delivery the almost immediate result. 

RESTORATION TO LIFE. 

To produce vitality in suspended animation from 
poisons, drowning, or any cause whatever, we have 
instances of astonishing results ; also In cases of still- 
born infants. One very remarkable case of this kind 
only I will mention. A physician in the country was 
called to attend the delivery of a poor woman ; the 
child was born all right, and apparently healthy, but 
showed no signs of life — was laid aside as dead. 
The woman, being poor and destitute, knew not how 
to procure a burial for her child. The doctor finally 
told her that if she would give it to him he would 
take care of It, and would make no charge for his 
attendance upon her, and would carefully preserve it 
in spirits, whlcli she might have the privilege of seeing 
at any time. She consented, and he carried it some 
three miles (carefully wrapped up) to his home, put 
away his horse, and took the child into his office, but 
thought he would first»experimcnt upon it with elec- 
tricity, when, to his surprise, after only a few minutes, 
he saw a drawing of some muscle that looked like life. 
He continued the operation with the battery, and soon 
it gasped a little, with a little more o{ nuiscular motion, 
30 



3 5 O INSTR UCTION. 

and soon a full breath, and finally full restoration, so 
that in some two and a half hours after he left the 
house of the mother with the dead child, he was back 
again with the same child alive, to the great rejoicing, 
of course, of the mother ; and the child grew to be a 
man, and is probably alive at this writing. 

I have many other cases, well substantiated, of life 
being restored from drowning, poisoning, taking an 
over-dose of opium, etc.; when the application of elec- 
tricity seemed to be like bringing life apparently from 
the dead. In fine, we are only just beginning to learn 
the great benefits yet to be derived from a greater 
knowledge of the varied uses of electricity as a 
vitalizing power for the human system, and the abso- 
lute necessity of being prepared to apply it at a 
moment's warning. 

SOMETHING NEW IN THE MANNER OF USING ELECTRICITY. 

Before closing the last chapter of this work, I feel 
I should do great injustice to myself, to the great and 
grand science I am advocating, and to the general 
good of the world even, if I finish without calling 
special attention to a few important facts set forth or 
heretofore noticed, but have not been made sufficiently 
clear and distinct. True, indeed, it is but a small 
work, and the product of only an obscure individual, 
^^ but great oaks from little acorns grow!' 

It will be remembered by those who have carefully 
read the whole of this work, that I made several 
claims as being nezv, and the result of my discovery, 
by critically noticing the undivided and inseparable 
connection between mind and matter brought about 



INSTR UCTION. 351 

and developed only through the action of this won- 
derfully mysterious agent, electricity. 

While many talk and write about their discoveries 
in the use of electricity for the cure of disease, I find 
little or nothing after all, in reading their books or 
circulars, that I consider an advance ox new ; and I con- 
clude that the community, after reading these works, 
and even trying the experiment of their treatment, 
decide with me in the matter — in fact, this is the tes- 
timony that comes to me at my office almost daily. 

Now it has been a mooted question in my own 
mind whether it were better to say in this place, and 
in connection with this matter of instruction, what I 
really and truly feel it my duty to say, lest I may be 
set down, as others have been, as advertising myself 
and practice, and then call upon the people to pay for 
the advertisement by asking them to buy my book. 
But this is not at all my object, nor my plan ; and I 
shall ask no one to buy the book except for their 
own special benefit — for their own enlightenment on 
this great subject — while abstractly, of course, it will 
benefit me also. It will have been observed by those 
who have carefully read this work, that from the be- 
ginning I have as far as possible scrupulously avoided 
making myself prominent, or inviting guests to come 
to me for treatment before going elsewhere; but 
rather left them to choose and act for themselves 
after candidly reading my views, plan, and system. 
But, as before said, I claim some things — important 
things — in my work as new, entirely new, now to my- 
self even when 1 made the discovery, because tho\- are 
not in the books, and of course new to men of learn- 



352 INSTRUCTION. 

ing and science, philosophers, physicians, and physi- 
ologists, who readily put into books what they have 
learned or discovered. 

Now, in conclusion, I unhesitatingly repeat that I 
have something new in the manner of using electricity 
in order to cure disease quickly and permanently. 
My best and most convincing evidence of that is what 
many patients say that come for treatment who had 
tried several other places or persons, and none used 
it as I did, and with as favorable results. 

Lastly, and perhaps the most important part of all, 
I add that my manner of instruction, as has been 
stated, is new and altogether different. You will ob- 
serve that I am not confined to any one machine in 
my plan of giving instruction, as some others are, and 
as described in a new work just published by a lady 
of our city, where the course or plan of instruction 
confines the student to one kind of machine only. I 
use Dr. Kidder's machine, and it is a very good one, 
and I recommend it to others ; but I use three others 
besides that are good ones. Then I use a direct com- 
pound current battery also, without any induction 
whatever, but has great intensity. This, in some 
cases of acute inflammation, is by far the best. It 
cures oftentimes when the induced current does not, 
and will not. 

My mode of instruction then is also new and en- 
tirely different in this very important particular, viz., 
any person, after receiving it, can treat with all of 
these different machines — with one just as well as 
with another, if the machine itself is a good one. 
And there are several kinds of very good machines, 



INSTR UCTION. 353 

while there are several kinds of very poor ones too, 
I am sorry to say — only made to sell. Then, again, 
my students know just as well how to use the direct 
compound current battery (if they choose to use it), 
when needed, from the same course of instruction, 
viz., similia similibiis ciiranter. That is what I have 
repeatedly stated before — a plus, where upon a careful 
examination a plus or positive condition is unmis- 
takably indicated ; and a negative or minus where this 
condition is as plainly indicated, and you will be sure 
of a satisfactory result. 

I have now in brief described the several common 
modes, as well as principles of electrical treatment, 
which, if carefully observed, will certainly cure all 
curable cases or forms of disease. Yet I have other 
ways of treating which are special, and which I have 
not room particularly to describe in this small work, 
but which, to the practical physician, are of great 
value in some peculiar diseases, such as a trans- 
verse treatment, treatments with different metal 
belts, which very much facilitate the cure in some 
cases. Then I also use instruments, both internal 
and external, for males and females in certain cases. 
This instruction, which is absolutely necessary for a 
practical physician, can only be given by a short 
course of lectures, with some practical observation 
and experience, at my office, or of some thorough 
proper practical operator. 

In concluding this volume, I have, on the following 
page, added a list both of acute and chronic diseases, 
alphabetically arranged, which our s\-stoin o{ treat- 
ment has proved especially successful in' curing. 
30^- X 



DISEASES CURED BY ELECTROPATHY. 



Amaurosis. 

Aphony, loss of voice. 

Asthma, 

Ague Chills, Fever and Ague. 

Atrophy, Nervous Consumption. 

Atony of the Stomach. 

Amenorrhoea, Suppressed Menses. 

All Mercurial Diseases. 

Bites of Poisonous Insects or Ani- 
mals. 

Bronchitis. 

Bladder, Stone or Gravel in. 

Consumption in first and second 
stages. 

Chlorosis, Green Sickness. 

Concussion of Brain. 

Contraction of Chest, Stricture of 
Limbs. 

Cholic, from different causes. 

Cramps or Spasms, Chronic or 
Acute. 

Congestive Diseases of all kinds. 

Corea, St. Vitus' Dance. 

Coldness of Feet and Hands. 

Cancers, in certain stages. 

Copper-colored Cuticle,or Blotches, 

Catarrh. 

Diphtheria. 

Deformed Limbs straightened. 

Deafness from paralysis of acoustic 
nerve. 

Dizziness, or Drowsiness. 

Dropsy. 

Diabetes, or Kidney Diseases. 

Diarrhoea. 

Dysentery. 

Dyspepsia in all its forms. 

Dismenorrhoea, Painful Menstrua- 
tion. 

Difficult Respiration. 

Enlargement of Joints. 

Ear-ache. 

Epilepsy,' Falling Sickness. 

Fevers of all kinds. 

Fits from different causes. 

Gastrition, Irritation of Stomach. 

Gout. 

Goitre, or Swelled Neck. 

Glandular Swellings. 

Gravel, or Calculi in the Bladder. 

Hemiplegia. 



Hemorrhage from different causes. 

Hysteria, Irritable Spine, etc. 

Headache, Sick, Nervous. 

Insanity. 

Inflamed or Sore Eyes. 

Incontinence of Urine. 

Kidneys, all diseases of. 

Liver, torpid state of. 

Lungs, Hemorrhage of, Conges- 
tion, etc. 

Lockjaw. 

Liver, Enlargement of. 

Leucorrhoea, Fluor Albus, Whites. 

Mental Depression. 

Muscular Contraction. 

Menstruation, Derangement in. 

Monomania. 

Milkleg. 

Numbness from injuries, or other- 
wise. 

Neuralgia. 

Nocturnal Emissions. 

Old Sores (indolent ulcers). 

Ozaena in some of its forms. 

Paraplegia. 

Palsy, Numb or Shaking. 

Paralysis, in whatever part. 

Poisoning. 

Palpitation of the Heart. 

Pleurisy. 

Prostration from various causes. 

Prolapsus Uteri, etc. 

Prolapsus Ani, or Piles. 

Perspiration, Excessive, 

Perspiration, Suspended. 

Pulmonary Apoplexy. 

Rush of Blood to the Head. 

Rheumatism, Acute or Chronic. 

Restlessness. 

Swelled Tonsils. 

Sore Throat, from any cause. 

Salt Rheum. 

Scrofula. 

Spinal Diseases, Curvature, etc. 

Tumors, Ovarian, etc. 

Tremens, Delirium. 

Tetanus, or Lockjaw. 

Uterine Misplacements. 

Uterine Weakness of all kinds. 

Weak Eyes, etc. 

White Swellings. 

354 



INDEX, 



PART I. 



For Index to Electricity as a Curative Agent, see p. 359. 



ACIDS all negative, 125. 
Alkalies all positive, 125. 
Alkalies and acids united and 

separated by electricity, 132. 
Alkaline and acid tastes of elec- 
tricity, 92, 94. 
All chemical changes of the uni- 
verse wrought by electricity, 123, 
129, 158. 
Animal chemistry, Liebig, 168. 
« electricity and electric 
pathology, 159. 
Apparatus, galvanic, Prof.Oersted's, 

97- 
Arago, M., 183. 
Asiatic cholera, 164. 
Astronomy, Ferguson's, 203. 
Attraction and repulsion, 44. 

«« and repulsion, by in- 

fluence of, the earth 
revolves, 251. 
« capillary, 243, 247. 

" magnetic, 222. 

" of cohesion, 242. 

Aurora Borealis, and Aurora Aus- 

tralis, 210, 233. 
Author's four prominent objects, 15. 



BATTERY, galvanic, 156, 162. 
Battery, galvanic, solutions 

used in experimenting with, lOI. 
Battery, voltaic, 104. 
Berzelius and Hisinger, 118, 13 1. 
Blood, the, 172. 
Bodies attracted to each other are 

in opposite states of electricity, 

105, 120, 124. 
Bodies, positive and negative, list 

of, 106. 

CALORIC is electricity, 21, 160, 
220. 
Calorimotor, Children's, icx). 

" Hare's, 100. 

Cause of magnetic attraction, 229, 

233. 
Centrifugal and centripetal forces, 

249. 
Changes in organic and inorganic 

matter, 122. 
Charcoal, 109. 
Chemical process, transformation of 

substances by, 134. 
Cholera morbus, 164. 
Circuit, light moves in a, 205. 
355 



35^ 



INDEX. 



Coliesion, 236, 

" attraction of, 242. 
Comets, eccentric movemerj^s of,259 
Compass, mariner's, Mrs. Somer- 

ville on, 181. 
Complaints, pulmonary, 168. 
Contact, electricity by, Thompson 

on, 104. 
Cruikshank's galvanic battery, 95. 

DAVENPORT, THOMAS, 188. 
Davy, Sir H., cliemical agen- 
cies of electricity, 118, 
Davy, Sir H., experiments of, 104, 

119, 129, 131, 136. 
Davy, Sir H., on oxygen and hy- 
drogen gases, 151. 
Decompositions, Berzelius and His- 

inger on, 118, 131. 
Deduction, direct and inverse, pro- 
cess of, 130. 
Deflagrator, Dr. Hare's, 97. 
Deity an essential principle of the 

universe, 28. 
Digby, Sir Kenhelm, 40. 
Discovery of electricity, 35. 
" of galvanism, 81. 
Disease,*! 64. 
Doebereiner, Prof, of Jena, 150. 

EDMONSON'S Rotating Arma- 
tures, 187. 
Effects, like causes produce like, 

126, 129, 
Electricity by contact, Thompson 
on, 104. 
" caloric is, 21, 160, 220. 

" capable of decomposing 

all compound bodies, 
104. 
" common, 34. 



Electricity, chemical agencies of, 
Sir H. Davy, 118. 
" discovery of, 35. 

" essential to the contin- 

uance of life, and 
the preservation of 
health, 164. 
" Grey on, 43. 

" Hawkesby on, 43. 

" heat and light identical, 

220, 229. 
" lightning is, 108. 

" magnetismproducedby, 

183. 
" negative, 49. 

" planets influenced by, 

248. 
** positive, 49, 146. 

" sun the grand reservoir 

of, 30. 
" the grand instrumental 

cause of the germina- 
tion of life, 159. 
" universal agent, 272. 

" Volta's theoiy of, 108. 

Electrics and non-electrics, 46. 
Electric states, tastes in ponderable 

substances depend upon, 126. 
Electro - magnetic machines, two 

kinds invented, 186. 
Electro-magnetism, 180. 
Epinus of St. Petersburg, 53. 
Experiments, Arago's, 183. 
■ " Boyle's, 41. 

" Cross's, 219. 

« Davy's, 104,119,129, 

131. 136. 
« Franklin's, 71. 

" Ingenhouz's, 1 1 2. 

« Moll's, Prof, 182. 



INDEX. 



357 



Experiments, Prof. Oersted's, 182. 

" Ricliman's fatal, 72. 

« Rive's, M.De la, 182. 

" Romas', M, de, 74. 

" Saussure's, 112. 

" Sennebier's, 112. 

" Silliman's, Prof., 183. 

" Ure's, Dr., 98. 

* « Wall's, Dr., 42. 

« Wollaston's,Dr,, 183. 

FARADAY, Prof., 150. 
Faust, John, 45. 
Ferguson's astronomy, 203. 
Fever, causes of and remedies for, 

Franklin's, Benj,, experiments, 71. 

GALVANT, 28, 80. 
Galvanic apparatus. Oersted's, 

97. 
Galvanic arrangements, 86. 
" battery, 156, 162. 
" " Cruikshank's, 95- 

" « Hare's, Dr., im- 

proved, 96, 
" " solutions used in 

experimenting 
with, loi. 
" machine, McGauly's, 187. 
Galvanism, 78. 

" discovery of, 81. 

Galvanometer, %},. 
Gaseous bodies, union of with 

solid, 108. 
Gas, hydrogen, no, 125, 147. 

" oxygen, 125, 136, 147. 
Gilbert, Dr. \Vm., 39. 
Gravitation, 236, 239. 

" attraction of, 241. 

" cause of, 242. 



Grey on electricity, 43. 
Guericke, Otto, 41. 

HANSTEEN, M., 184. 
Plare, Dr., 96. 

Hawkesby on electricity, 43. 

Health, electricity essential to the 
preservation of, 164. 

Heat and electricity, Thompson on, 
58, 115. 

Heat and light identical, 218, 220. 

Heat imponderable and all-pervad- 
ing, 214. 

Henry, Prof., 184, 186. 

Herschel, Dr., 183, 195. 

Hydriodic acid, 105. 

Hydrobromic acid, 105. 

Hydrogen, 107, no. 

" Turner on, 148, 153. 

IMPONDERABLE matter, 24. 
A Ingenhouz's experiments, 112. 
Inorganic matter, changes in, 122. 

" substances, 103. 
Introductory, 13. 

LAWS governing nature uni- 
form, 93, 124. 
Lehot, M., 247. 
Ley den jar, 70. 

Liebig's " Animal Chemistry," 16S. 
Life, electricity essential to the 

continuance of, 164. 
Life, electricity the grand instru- 
mental cause of the germination 

of, 159. 
Light, 174. 

" and heat, 209. 

" imponderable, 195. 

'* is electricity, 214. 

** moves in a circuit, 2C)s. 



358 



INDEX. 



Light never stationary, 195. 

" solar, 194. 

" sun the source of, 194, 227. 

" two theories of, 195. 
Lightning and electricity identical, 

108. 
Lightning rods, 75. 
Like causes produce like effects, 

126, 129. 
Lungs, the, 152, 173. 

MAGNET, galvanic, Prof. Hen- 
ry's, 186, 242. 
Magnet, horseshoe, 184. 
Magnetic attraction, 222. 

" " cause of, 229, 

233- 
Magnetism, 180. 

" Mrs. Somerville on, 

183, 213. 
" produced by electricity, 
183. 
Mariner's compass, 181. 
Matter imponderable, 24. 

" ponderable, 23. 
McGauly's galvanic machine, 187. 
Melfi, Flavio da, 181. 
Metals and steel, influence of elec- 
tro-magnetism over, 180. 
Metcalf, Dr., on '* terrestrial mag- 
netism," 21, 225. 
Mind an essential principle of the 

universe, 26. 
Moll's, Prof., experiments, 182. 
Motion of planets, 236. 
Motive power developed by elec- 
tricity, 186. 

NATURE, laws governing, uni- 
form, 93, 124. 
Kewton, Sir Isaac, 19, 43, 197. 



OERSTED'S, Prof., experiments 
182. 
Oersted's, Prof., galvanic appara- 
tus, 97. 
Organic matter, changes in, 122. 
Originality, 16. 
Oxygen, iii. 

" and hydrogen, 1 1 7, 142. 
Oxygen and hydrogen gases, Sir 

H. Davy on, 151. 
Oxygen and hydrogen, Turner on, 
148, 153. 

PLANETS, annual revolutions 
of, 257. 
Planets, dissimilarity in revolutions 
of, 254. 
" influenced by electricity, 

248. 
" motion of, 236. 
Polarity, 65. 

Pouillet, M., 108, 113, 136, 162. 
Priestly, Dr., 1 12, 137. 

REPULSION, attraction and, 
44. 
Resinous and vitreous fluids, 48. 
Rive's, M. De la, experiments, 182. 
Rods, lightning, 75. 
Romas', M. de, experiments, 74. 
Rotating Armatures, Edmonson's, 
187. 

SAHARA, Desert of, 226. 
Saussure's experiments, II2. 
Sennebier's " II2. 

Silliman's, Prof., experiments, 183. 
Solutions used in experimenting 

with galvanic battery, loi. 
Somerville, Mrs., 181, 183, 213. 
Storms, 222. 



INDEX. 



359 



Substances, transformation of, by 

chemical process, 134. 
Sun the grand reservoir of electric- 
ity, 30» 123. 
" the source of light, 194, 227. 
'* variation of needle of compass 
produced by rays of, 21 1. 

TASTES in ponderable sub- 
stances depend upon electric 
states, 126. 
Ten Eyck, Dr., 184. 
"Terrestrial Magnetism," Dr. Met- 

calf on, 21, 225. 
Thales, sketch of, 38. 
Theophrastus, " Peri lithone,'' 38. 
Thompson on " Heat and Electric- 
ity," 58, US- 
Thompson on " Electricity by Con- 
tact," 104. 
Turner on Heat, 215. 

" " Hydrogen and oxygen, 
148, 143. 



UNIVERSE, all chemical 
changes of the, wrought by 
electricity, 123, 129, 158. 
Universe constantly progressing in 

chemical changes, 123. 
Universe, Deity an essential prin- 
ciple in the, 28. 
Universe, ponderable matter an 
essential principle in the, 23, 102. 
Universe, imponderable matter an 
essential principle in the, 24, 102. 
Universe, mind an essential prin- 
ciple in the, 26, 102. 
Ure's, Dr., experiments, 98. 

VITREOUS and resinous fluids, 
48. 
Volta's theory of electricity, 108. 
Voltaic battery, 104. 



w 



ALL'S, Dr., experiments, 42. 
Wollaston's, Dr., experi- 
ments, 183. 



PART 11. 



ELECTRICITY AS A CURATIVE AGENT. 



ANIMALS, dead and alive, gal- 
vanic experiments upon, 270. 
Atmosphere, 328. 

•* heahhy component 

parts of, 274. 
Attraction and repulsion, earth re- 
volves by influence of, 290. 
Author's object in publishing this 
volume, 264. 



Author's practical experience in 
treating diseases, 331. 

I^ATIIS, Turkish, Russian, and 

-L-' cmnmon, 3J7. 

Hatlory, other modes of practice 

without use of, 325. 
Blood, author's new theory of 

cleansing and circulating the, 275. 



360 



INDEX. 



'Blood negative at the extremities, 

278, 280. 
Blood, stopping of the, 348. 
Brain, inflammation in the, 312. 

CAPS, percussion, 305. 
Centrifugal and centripetal 
forces, 289. 
Centrifugal and centripetal forces, 

effect of, 290. 
Chills and fever, 344. 
Chronic diseases, 313, 340. 
Comet of i860, 294. 
Corpus calloswn, office or use of, 

283. 
Cure, electricity a specialty as a, 308. 
Cure movement, 326. 
Cure, sun, 328. 
Current, inductive, 337. 
Currents, right way of applying, 

338. 

DISEASE, electricity may be 
the producer of, 273. 
Disease, fever a symptom, not a, 341 . 

" what is it? 330. 
Diseases, chronic, 313, 340. 

" improvement in treat- 

ment of, 301. 
" list of, cured by electric- 
ity, 354. 
Duty before circumstances, 315. 

EARTH-CURE, 328. 
Earth, relation of the, to the 
sun, 292. 
Earth revolves by influence of at- 
traction and repulsion, 290. 
Electricity, affinity of for minerals, 
273- 



Electricity a universal agent, 272. 
" and oxygen identical, 

273, 285. 
" applied to persons about 

expiring, 309. 
*' as a curative agent, 253, 

267, 275. 

" as developed in inani- 

mate nature, 286, 

" a specialty as a cure,3o8. 

" a vitalizing agent, 329. 

" a vivifying agent, 287. 

" common, 265, 269. 

" ignorance of medical 

men on the subject 
of, 268. 

" may be the producer of 

disease, 273. 

" merits of, 271. 

" selfishness the cause of 

ignorance of use of, 

268, 270. 

" something new in the 

manner of using, 350. 
" sun the origin of, 272. 

Electropathy, formidable objections 
to, 314. 
" opposition to, 303. 

Experiments upon dead and live 

animals, 270. 
Extremities, blood negative at the, 
278, 280. 

FEVER a symptom, not a dis- 
ease, 341. 
Fever, chills and, 344. 
Fevers, etc., 312. 
Fevers, treatment of, 341. 
Forces, centrifugal and centripetal, 
289. 



INDEX. 



361 



GALVANI, 269. 
Galvanism, 269. 

HEALTHY atmosphere, com- 
ponent parts of a, 274. 

INDUCTIVE current, 337. 
A Inflammation in the brain, 312. 
Instruction, 322. 
Introductory, 263. 

LIFE, restoration to, 349. 
Lucifer matches, 305. 
Lungs, the, 278, 298. 

MAGNETISM, 269. 
Matches, Lucifer, 305. 
Medical men, ignorance of, on the 

subject of electricity, 268. 
Mesmerism, 270. 
Mind, the, 283. 
Mind, the influence of, over the 

body, 284, 
Minerals, affinity of electricity for, 

273- 
Mineral waters, 326. 
Minus condition, explanation of 

term, 334. 
Morse, Prof., 266, 306. 
Movement-cure, 326. 

NATURE, inanimate, electricity 
as developed in, 286. 
Nerves, the, 281. 
Nervo-vital force or fluid, 269. 

OBJECTIONS, formidable, to 
electropathy, 314. 
Opposition to olcctropirlhy, 303. 



Oxygen a compound substance, 274. 
Oxygen and electricity identical, 
^IZ, 285. 

PLANETS, why kept in their 
places, 292. 
Pleurisy, 339. 
Plus condition, explanation of term, 

334. 
Pneumonia, congestive, 310. 
Principles, contractile and expan- 
sive, 346. 

RESTORATION to life, 349. 
Rheumatism, etc., 344. 
Russian baths, 327. 

SELFISHNESS the cause of ig- 
norance of use of electricity, 
268, 270. 
Similia similibtis czirattttir, 2)3j- 
Spleen, discovery of its office or 

use, 296, 298. 
Sun-cure, 328. 

Sun, relation of the earth to, 292. 
Sun the origin of electricity, 272. 

'^piIALES, 265. 
1 Treatment of fever, 341. 
Turkish baths, 327. 

T TNSEEN vital force, 300. 

WATERS, mineral, 326. 
Willard's, Mrs., theory, 2S1. 
Words of ciuiliou to all. ^17. 



THE END. 



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